The Fate of the Furious Review (2017)

There are three great sequences in F Gary Gray's “The Fate of the Furious,” (the eight installment of the “Fast and the Furious” franchise) a couple of which are strong set ups for movies in their own right.

The first is the movie’s opening sequence, set in the streets of Havana, Cuba, wherein Dom (Vin Diesel) challenges a random heavy Raldo (Celestino Cornielle) to a street race to defend his cousin’s and new wife Letty’s (Michelle Rodriguez) honor. It’s simple and well choreographed, and it even involves Dom driving an old beat up car that eventually catches on fire. The second sequence involves sometime government agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and mercenary Deckard (Jason Statham) in a German prison, who make trading insults into an art form. Seriously, I could watch these tough guys bicker back and fourth for hours. The sequence eventually culminates in an outrageous prison riot/melee fight. And the third sequence involves Deckard, his brother Owen (Luke Evans) and a third person who will remain unnamed so as not to spoil the fun or the plot. Lets just say a very famous British actress makes a delightful cameo. All three of these sequences are intimate and character driven, while also providing giddy action movie thrills.

I wish I could say these sequences were enough to make a good movie but that’s not the case. “The Fate of the Furious” can be awfully fun, thanks mostly to its lovable, vibrant band of silly characters. However, it can also feel excruciatingly dull and redundant. A lot of this has to do with the way the franchise has evolved. At around the fifth installment (“Fast Five”) these movies slowly turned from straightforward action flicks about illegal drag racing, gangsters and heists, into big dumb action cartoons involving physics defying action set pieces and global espionage. Dom, Letty and Hobbs, along with fellow crewmembers Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Ludacris) became super spies, saving the world from terrorists and having fun doing it.

While the global espionage angle felt fresh in the sixth film and was tolerable in the seventh it now feels stale and uninspired. Super hacker/terrorist Cipher (Charlize Theron, elegantly cunning and soft spoken) has stolen the launch codes for Russian nukes that she plans to set off, thereby plunging the world into chaos. That’s it. That’s her motivation. I know... bland, right? How many more movies involving nuclear weapons theft and the threat of world annihilation are we going to have to endure? On top of that, we get scene after scene of characters in high tech control rooms rapidly typing on computers, spouting technical mumbo jumbo that makes your mind wander and lots of hacking into various GPS/surveillance systems. Between the “Bourne” franchise and the countless other cyber action movies that have come out of late, this stuff is beyond played out.

Even the big finale, wherein the Fast crew infiltrates a Russian military base, can’t help but feel overwrought and disingenuous. These guys are ex criminals, car experts and government spies but now they can also take over a heavily armed, well-guarded military base like Seal Team 6? The sequence is preposterous even for this franchise. Worse, it feels desperate, as if the filmmakers are saying: “we know this espionage plot is super generic but watch the crew get chased by a giant nuclear submarine across the ice!”

The other major problem with “Fate of the Furious” has to do with the franchises focus on the importance of family. As outlandish as these movies have become, the theme of family and loyalty is the one element that’s taken very seriously, that grounds these flicks in reality. Over the course of the last four films this crew has gradually developed into a tightknit and ever-growing family-- a family that gets together for potluck dinners after they save the world. This aspect can be cheesy at times but it can also be endearing. Outside of the ridiculous action, the genuine bond that has developed between these characters (and the witty chemistry between the cast) is the main reason why we keep watching.

The global espionage plot in “Fate” is set into motion when Cipher turns Dom against “the family.” This is an intriguing hook but ultimately the reasoning behind his betrayal is lazy and contrived, pushing the other established family members to the sidelines and introducing a new character that we’re supposed to be automatically attached to. The emotional stakes are low and Dom’s familial dilemma is undercooked.

Additionally, Dom doesn’t get to have much fun this time around—the majority of his scenes being extremely morose and static. In these moments, “Fate” is a full-fledged drama, a mediocre drama at that. The film’s attempts at serious philosophical discourse between Dom and Cipher are simply idiotic and done without a shred of irony. These scenes might have worked if a better actor played Dom but Diesel simply doesn’t have the dramatic chops to go toe to toe with the great Theron. He recites his lines in a low affected grumble, talking slowly, savoring each word and phrase with zero awareness of how melodramatic he is.

In the end, the combination of a generic convoluted espionage plot and half-baked family drama sinks “The Fate of the Furious,” overshadowing the strength of the cast and those three sequences.

C+ 

The Transporter Refueled Review (2015)

Generally speaking, most remakes and reboots fail to reinvigorate the original films in any way.

Not only is “The Transporter Refueled” (rebooting the “Transporter” trilogy that made actor Jason Statham into the action star he is today) unnecessary and lacking fresh or innovative ideas, its director Camille Delamarre is in such a hurry (no, make that a full sprint) to get through the brisk ninety-six minute running time and be done. There’s nothing wrong with a snappy pace, especially with action movies but if you’ve got nothing interesting going on, if the characters are paper-thin, the action sloppy and repetitive, the story dull, then why bother even making the movie to begin with? “Refueled” evaporates into thin air five seconds after the final credits role.

After a brief, superfluous opening scene in which a group Russian baddies take over the prostitution racket in Marseille, France (a feat apparently as easy and underwhelming as shooting a group of rival gangsters in front of a nightclub) we’re then introduced to our protagonist Frank (Ed Skrein). He’s former Spec Op’s now working as a transporter (via car) of any package, legal or illegal. He’s hired by a quartet of sexy prostitutes who are looking to get back at their boss (one of those Russian baddies from the opening scene). The picture zips from one scene to another without giving us a chance to fully absorb or comprehend what’s happening. As the movie goes on the twists and turns of the screenplay (by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Luc Besson) become increasingly jumbled and convoluted, due mainly in part to the movie’s relentless, breakneck speed. The final twist is revealed and passed over so quickly that it’s rendered nonsensical.

I suppose the film moves swiftly to mask its utter lack of creativity and depth. The French setting is so flat and nondescript the actors might as well be performing in front of a limp cardboard set on a soundstage. The action sequences are sloppy-- shot using drab hand held camera, (by cinematographer Christophe Collette) while the editing is twitchy and disorienting, as if editor Julien Rey drank one too many double shot lattes before sitting down to work. The continuity is muddled; you often lose track of what’s going on and how each character fit into the craziness. What’s most disappointing is the sequences are uninspired. We have a run of the mill “get-away-from-the-cops” car chase, wherein about six or seven cop cars are smashed to a pulp. There are around five repetitive melee fights in which Frank gets to show off his martial art skills, (pretty much mimicking Statham’s moves from the original films) and a scene where characters have to get off a moving plane as it drives along a runway.

Making matters worse, the characters have less personality than the inanimate movie theater chair I was sitting in during the advanced screening. Frank is set up as this methodical warrior type who follows a self-imposed code of conduct. He doesn’t carry a gun or ask for names of his clients. Once a deal is struck up between the client there’s no going back on it, etc. (All of these “codes” are from the original trilogy by the way. Yet another way this movie does nothing to seperate itself from the original). However this is all just window dressing and soon enough he turns into yet another one-dimensional tough guy to carry out action movie clichés. Meanwhile, the prostitutes are interchangeable one from another. On some level it seems like the movie is aware of the shallowness and indistinguishable nature of these female characters.When they rob a bank at the beginning they all wear the same blonde wigs and skimpy black dresses (to hide their identities) and go on to spend a majority of the movie in these same identical guises. You can't tell them apart, although evenwithout the guises you still couldn't distinguish them. As for the Russian antagonists? They’re so forgettable that at one point (I’d say about fifteen minutes in) the movie feels the need to remind us they were the ones in the opening scene. Once again, the movie seems to be aware of how thin and unmemorable its characters are.

As the new Transporter, Skrein is cold, grimacing and devoid of charm. Perhaps it would have been better if he were to loosen up and have some fun with the role instead of simply doing a C grade Statham impression. The rest of the actors look as though they would rather be anywhere else, hastily reciting their lines with zero emotion or energy. Attempts at witty repartee come off awkward and forced. This is an outrageous B action movie, why is everyone so damn serious? Only Ray Stevenson as Frank’s retired spy father looks like he’s having any fun—injecting the character with a streak of smart alecky playfulness.

“Transporter Refueled” is a mess —an amalgamation of derivative, poorly shot action set pieces, wafer thin characters and a rushed, convoluted story. The producer and cowriter is Luc Besson who also produced and co-wrote the original films. Why did he feel the need to reboot his own franchise without any innovation or purpose? We’ll never know.

D-