F9: Still Magnetic

For a 33-year-old adult, I probably spend too much time quoting the “life is short, the world is wide” line from Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Or maybe it’s a truth you appreciate more as you get older. Or maybe the acute pleasure of plopping down in a movie theater to watch something that throws all stuffiness and pretense aside simply sticks in my brain.

Whatever attracts me to the sentiment, it’s shared between the Fast & Furious franchise and Mamma Mia, the deep, glittering exhale of Donna as she chews on the vapid possibilities of a seaside life singing ABBA tunes being the same in spirit as Dom bracing against a steering wheel as he launches a car into physics-defying stunts. Both series exist in fantasy worlds where momentary pleasure trumps all, and both exemplify that life is far too short to deprive yourself of the bombastic joys cinema can provide.

I’m a recent convert to the Fast & Furious fandom, having written them off sight unseen as action drivel only to delight in their camp nature once I gave them a chance (I wrote a whole article explaining this). Nine films into the main series and their nonsensical musings on family, masculine pride, and the world-altering power of a well-driven car is still going strong with F9, giving people all the surface-level pleasure they could want and, if they so choose, an appreciation of just how hard they’re working to be ridiculous.

Make Me Laugh

As my brother recently reminded me through a sick burn, when people don’t know how something works they often chalk it up to magnets (I was wondering how trackless theme park rides work, sorry I speculated on magnets). Most of us don’t know how they attract and repel things, so in our imagination magnets can power even the most complicated contraptions. That makes them the perfect addition to a world that must one-up cars taking out planes and nuclear submarines, and it’s not beyond comprehension that their presence in F9 is in on the joke my brother was making.

The self-aware series knows that its joys come from monstrously straight-faced absurdity, so what better way to get objects flying around during an epic chase through a crowded city than with a magnetic truck that can have its push and pull adjusted at will? The quick explanation allows for the cascade of nonsensical action to appear logical even as your brain is screaming with laughter, aka it’s an addition that allows the movie to hit the Fast & Furious sweet spot.

It’s no surprise that co-writer/director Justin Lin staged such an immaculate set piece, having helmed four previous entries in the series and been largely responsible for pushing it from street-racing heist movies to international superspy melodramas. As important to the Fast & Furious as Vin Diesel’s hulkingly offbeat portrayal of the series’ heart and soul, Dominic Toretto, is Lin’s grasp of the absurd, of where to stretch the limits of belief and where to ground the movie in reality. That balance is what’s made the series into the loveable galoot it is today, and again and again in F9 that fine-tuned sensibility is displayed masterfully, even as his narrative ambition brings on unnecessary complications.

Make Me Interested

No one is coming to a Fast & Furious movie for its intricate plot. Historically, they are as loosey-goosey with continuity as the hopelessly convoluted X-Men series was, with friends and foes constantly switching sides, new family members appearing like clockwork, and deaths routinely being retconned, no matter how many bullets and fiery explosions someone was subjected to. To enjoy these movies requires you to give yourself up to its whims, to nod and say ‘of course, another sibling!’ and rewrite a character’s history at the drop of a dime. So when F9 introduces a previously unmentioned brother of Dom, the evil superspy Jakob played by John Cena, that isn’t the unnecessary complication that causes problems.

Where Lin and co-writer Daniel Casey go wrong is in trying to pack in a who’s-who of the Fast & Furious diaspora, not contenting themselves with the current iteration of the family (tech wizards Tej and Ramsey, wise guy Roman, ruling couple Dom and Letty, and sister Mia) but instead splitting these characters up to go on trips down memory lane.

Sure, it’s fun to see what shenanigans Tokyo Drift’s Sean and Twinkie have gotten themselves into, to drop in on Shaw matriarch Queenie for an exposition-by-Helen Mirren-car-chase, and it’s an absolute crowd-pleaser to bring back Han, but in doing so they create the notorious multi-plotline drag, a middle section where our main characters spread out and the movie gets stuck endless checking in on them.

Lin and Casey are far from the first filmmakers to fall into this trap, and while they avoid having this section drag the entire film down, the dip is particularly acute after a stellar, old-fashioned car chase with the main crew opens up the action. The extended sequence is remarkably simple compared to the bells and whistles that come later in the movie, but it remains a highlight of the film thanks to the chemistry of the crew, an important lesson that these characters have become loveable as a group and that separating them takes away a bit of the luster.

Make Me Care

Somewhere deep down Lin and Casey know that group dynamics drive these films, having once again structured a Fast & Furious movie around the struggle to make peace with complicated family ties. The eight-film absence of Jakob is explained through flashbacks that fill out a previously alluded to tragedy in Toretto family history, and the way this continues to mature the series’ fascination with men and their relationships while keeping its camp sensibility intact is what gives the movie its loveable soul.

Yes, F9 is inherently absurd, the out-of-this-world action being explicitly tied to a camp critique of macho masculinity (again, read my other article). Diesel’s Dom, with his unbelievably muscled body and gutturally deep voice, is a farcical representation of masculinity on the surface, but as the series enters its third decade it’s allowed him to mature as a man into the very real problems people encounter as they balance the responsibilities of a long, full life.

The fact is that the oft-repeated assertion that Fast & Furious is about family is actually true: the series has become very concerned with who Dom and his crew keep close enough to go into battle for and what they are fighting to get home to. It’s not a deep exploration, and it’s only to be found under layers of cheese, but the melodramatic flourishes are earned. The proof is in the quiet moments that generate surprising emotional pulls (yes, the movie has quiet moments), in the glances between Dom and Letty, in the playful ribbing of Tej and Roman, and in the tasteful allusions to a character who, mercifully, you are encouraged to imagine is living a beautiful life.

Conclusion: F9

F9 keeps to what the series does best: absurdly fun action and time spent with a family you root for, but it’s not the smoothest ride of the series.

Are you a fan of the Fast & Furious series? Does F9 keep you revved up for more?

F9 is being released in theaters in the US on June 25th, 2021 and in the UK on June 24th, 2021. For international release dates, click here.

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