F9: The Fast Saga (Film Review)

2021 Universal Pictures
Directed by: Justin Lin; Written by: Daniel Casey and Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, John Cena, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Michael Rooker, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell, and Charlize Theron
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 143 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 3/10

Dominic Toretto is living off the grid with his wife, Letty, and son, Brian. His peace is disturbed when some terrorists steal something that is really bad, and could mess up the whole world, and for some reason, only some guy who was just a big rig-thieving street racer can stop them. Now, Dom must reassemble his team of unrelated family to take on a threat he's never faced before: his brother Jakob, who for some reason, hasn't been mentioned in the eight Fast and Furious movies up till now. Jakob, who somehow went from a big rig-thieving street racer's brother, to a "master thief, assassin and high performance driver," is the terrorist's lead henchman. Now, it's Dom and his family and their cars and guns versus Jakob and his terrorist crew and their cars and guns. Hijinks ensure.
I forgot whatever it is the terrorists' world-threatening MacGuffin does literally the moment one of Fast Nine's characters explained it. Nothing in Fast Nine matters, and the stakes are so low, one of the characters has to frequently point out that apparently this series' heroes are invincible. Multiple scenes show the villains pointing and firing guns directly at Dom and his crew, but the bullets just seem to vanish in thin air. A previous film in this series features a moment where Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto "catches" a falling character with his car. The stunt is played as a climactic moment, but Fast Nine features falling characters being caught by awkwardly CGI-aided cars again and again to the point that if anyone is ever falling, no matter how great the height, a nearby car pillow will cushion their fall.
Indeed, Fast Nine, or F9: The Fast Saga, tries so hard to one-up and extremify the action of past movies, it forgets to do anything else. The series' original 2001 film was a brilliant piece of trash, a direct rip-off of the early 90's classic, Point Break, with street racing replacing surfing, and Diesel and Paul Walker as more stoic versions of Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. The film just worked, with Diesel's uptight and serious villain somehow perfectly gelling with Paul Walker's "just want to have a good time" California dude charisma. The series took a strange course, but eventually found its ideal form in 2011's Fast Five, which is action movie perfection. Five took the series into more of a car-chase/heist direction, with incredible practical stunts leading the way, and a closing chase scene that has to be one of the most fun and destructive ever put to film. Unfortunately, the studio and filmmakers took the wrong lessons from that film. The lesson should have been to ground the series with just enough character moments, with emphasis on just grounded enough chase scenes centered around incredible practical effects work and limited CGI.
The sixth and seventh films are both a lot of fun, with some great stunts, but don't quite reach Five's peak, as each slightly edges the franchise further into parody, with the laws of physics becoming floatier and floatier. However, they still work, with the relationship between Walker's Brian and and Diesel's Toretto the anchoring force in the series' newfound "family" center. Walker truly was the heart of these films, and his gleeful exclamations of "oh shit!" when a chase scene would vroom into overdrive brought a warmth and humanity that is now sorely missing. Diesel, with Walker to counter him, worked great as the focused, all business counterpart to Walker's more relaxed energy. Walker's death during the seventh film's production should have ensured that the seventh film be the fitting end the series at that point deserved. Now it just deserves to die. Without Walker, these movies just aren't fun, and don't seem to have a reason to exist, outside of making massive sums for Universal Pictures, and to provide Diesel with steady work.
The issues here are myriad. Dom and Brian's daddy issues gave heart to the way the two tried to create a new family out of the series' massive character stable. With only the dour Dominic behind the wheel, the family angle seems absurd. However, nothing here tops the absurdity of this 9th film's action sequences. The fifth and sixth films, and to some degree the seventh only used CGI to augment the awesome, practically done chase and action scenes. With Dom and his crew now essentially functioning as a bunch of James Bond's on steroids, characters are now driving cars off of cliffs and through mine fields, and even launch to and drive around outer space. The practical effects seem to have gone out the window. I'm sure there are some great stunts here, but all of the computerized visual noise effectively mutes them.
The more grounded approach would have paid huge dividends here, as the film's closing "magnet car" chase scene would be incredible if the entire film built to it as a clear climax. Instead, it barely registers, as we get frequent cuts to characters driving a car in space, and John Cena's Jakob riding around in a visually bland armored vehicle. Nothing really lands, and I was relieved when this nearly two-and-a-half hour picture was family, I mean finally over. Put this series to bed...put it on blocks in the front yard, or in the garage with a tarp over it. The Fast series should have never continued after Walker's death. Since then, we've gotten two films that feel like nothing more than a constant visual air horn.