Fate of the Furious (The Fast and The Furious 8)

[Emperorjones]

Checked it out yesterday. I enjoyed it. I think its one of the better films in the franchise, second to Fast Five. It also boasts the best villain, in Charlize Theron's mysterious, sinister hacker.

I don't think the film is as over-the-top as the sixth and seventh films and I also don't think its as funny. It has jokes, but they didn't really land much for me. The action and story was a little bit more grounded compared the last couple films, but still it does have some over-the-top stuff in there. Fate also has a lot of action and an intriguing premise, one of the better hooks for me in the franchise.

Ranking the films:

Fast Five
The Fate of the Furious
Fast and Furious 6
Furious 7
Fast and Furious
2Fast2Furious
The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift
The Fast and The Furious

[MindofShadow]

Is Fast Five when the films turned more into action stunt porn vs car porn?

I haven't seen one of these since too fast too furious which was one of my least favorite movies ive ever went to the theater for lol... thought about trying them again

[CvilleWakandan]

Fast and furious got away from street racing aspect.

Fast Five started the ensemble theme.

Newest one was good.

[Emperorjones]

^
I agree with this description of the franchise. It shifted from a low-budget series focused on illegal street racing and car culture to a globetrotting action franchise. I've been going back and watching the franchise again. I saw seeds of what was to come with 2Fast2Furious which moved the action to Miami and turned into a crime/action/thriller about taking down a drug lord. This theme recurs in the fourth and fifth movies. And with Tokyo Drift, the glossy, higher-budget look was introduced that the succeeding films pretty much adopt. Fast and Furious, I could almost see that they had perfected the formula, but not yet. Fast and Furious was a darker movie than I remember. And with Fast Five they struck gold, bringing in that ensemble, and doing a great job of mixing action/comedy/drama. I think they carried that off well from Fast Five to Furious 7. They continue the formula in Fate of the Furious, however I do think the film is darker, similar to Fast and Furious, and for me the jokes don't work as well, but that could be a personal thing. There is humor, there is still the camaraderie, but I have to wonder if Fate is trying to orient itself to the loss of Paul Walker and Brian and what he meant to the team.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Since my kids are now old enough, we watched FF 1, 2 and 4 before going to see 8. 

2 Fast 2 Furious holds up extremely well to me, and Tyrese's performance was as entertaining and breakout as I remembered it.  My kids liked it better than the first one, which they enjoyed.

Skipped 3 (which I've never seen in its entirety) to get to Vin's return in 4, which everyone loved.  The production values and scale go way up with this one.  Justin Lin kicks the franchise to the next level.

Just came from the latest installment, which I loved. 

still going to watch 5, 6 and 7 with the kids. 

[Hypestyle]

The team is squarely in GI Joe territory now, for the last couple of entries.     Not that it's a bad thing.

[JLI Jesse]

Forget GI Joe, they're basically the Avengers these days! 

[Emperorjones]

Since my kids are now old enough, we watched FF 1, 2 and 4 before going to see 8. 

2 Fast 2 Furious holds up extremely well to me, and Tyrese's performance was as entertaining and breakout as I remembered it.  My kids liked it better than the first one, which they enjoyed.

Skipped 3 (which I've never seen in its entirety) to get to Vin's return in 4, which everyone loved.  The production values and scale go way up with this one.  Justin Lin kicks the franchise to the next level.

Just came from the latest installment, which I loved. 

still going to watch 5, 6 and 7 with the kids.

Skipping Tokyo Drift is no big deal really. It's an outlier among the films and it's placed awkwardly in the franchise. Chronologically Tokyo Drift fits between films 6 and 7. I think it's very interesting watching Lin's development, starting with Tokyo Drift to Fast and Furious 6 and how he oversaw the blossoming of that franchise.

[Vic Vega]

The chronological order of the FF movies is 1, 2,4,5,6,3(!),7 and then the new one.

Haven't seen the new one yet.

Wondering how they are gonna convince the gang to work with Jason Statham when he killed Han 2 movies ago.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Their management of the time line with the death of Han is one of the most impressive things about the franchise. 

As for the tone, yes it's Bond/Avengers territory now, but where else could it go?  I'm impressed that they work in a car chase every film. 

[Battle]

Just think...  much like Star Wars,  the original movie started out as a low end B movie!

[Emperorjones]

The chronological order of the FF movies is 1, 2,4,5,6,3(!),7 and then the new one.

Haven't seen the new one yet.

Wondering how they are gonna convince the gang to work with Jason Statham when he killed Han 2 movies ago.

Good question about Statham. I hadn't fully considered that until I heard a reviewer mention it, and after I've gone back and relooked at six and seven, especially seven, yeah it should be very hard for them to accept Statham. I will tell you that Han's murder is not forgotten in Fate.

Spoiler (click to reveal)

In Fate it is brought up mainly by Letty and then dropped. My memory is failing but I don't think the rest of the team was happy to see him either. The Rock definitely wasn't. Fate goes into overdrive (pun intended) to redeem Statham's character. He and The Rock start off jaw jacking and flexing with each other but are joking by the end of it once it's revealed that Statham was likely framed like The Rock had been in Fate. Also Statham saves Ramsey in Fate, where I think he put her in danger at least once, but probably numerous times in Furious 7. The best scene though with Statham is his airplane rescue of Vin's child. That really showed off Statham's action and comedy skills and made him endearing to the audience. As did the interaction between him and his mother, played by Helen Mirren. The even neater trick is that Fate has sort of redeemed his brother, played by Luke Evans. Evans was an even colder piece of work than Statham was. At least Statham was avenging a brother, something Vin could relate to. Evans was just a cold professional, the dark mirror of Vin, who disparaged the idea of family. I think the rescue of Vin's son will patch things over for Vin. Plus, the franchise likes turning bad guys into good guys, or rather enemies into friends.

I do think it will be interesting going forward to see how they incorporate Statham. The way the film ended, both he and The Rock could move on. There was enough closure to me for their arcs. One thing that might completely redeem Statham if they do wish to have him continue in the franchise and join the team is to have Han survive. I'm not so certain now that Han is dead. We see him in the crashed car, we see it explode, and they say Han is dead. But we don't see a body. We were led to believe that Letty was dead as well before. I could see them bringing Han back, perhaps as a villain. Not in the next film, but maybe the tenth.

[Emperorjones]

Their management of the time line with the death of Han is one of the most impressive things about the franchise. 

As for the tone, yes it's Bond/Avengers territory now, but where else could it go?  I'm impressed that they work in a car chase every film.

I was thinking that the Fast and Furious franchise has gotten the team concept better than Mission Impossible, which was supposed to be all about the team, but was too dominated by Tom Cruise. Though that franchise is just starting to really build up that team, around the fifth film, a la Fast Five, so maybe it will get five more films as well.

I also think the Furious franchise is more entertaining than the Bond films I've seen overall. I thought Fate of the Furious was similar to the last Bond film SPECTRE in some respects but handled that similarity better than SPECTRE did, and Theron was a more chilling villain than Christoph Waltz.

[Reginald Hudlin]

The Mission movies were never really about the team concept like the series were.  The FF movies are all about team....or family, as Dom says it.  Yes, they are now Bond films, but with a multi-ethnic cast and more jokes.  It will be interesting to see how the Bond films try and respond. 

[MindofShadow]

Imma have to hunt down fast 5 and onwards i guess. Maybe redbox has them