The Fate of the Furious is juiced-up joy with the finale hitting new peaks of craziness

REVIEW: The juiced-up joy of The Fate Of the Furious is the highly kinetic action scenes. The finale hits new peaks of craziness.

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS (M)

Director: F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton)

Starring: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Helen Mirren, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris.

Rating: Three-and-a-half stars

May the horse(power) be with you

JUST in case you didn’t get the memo, it has actually been official for quite some time: the Fast & Furious franchise is Star Wars for petrolheads.

At the nucleus of this souped-up universe you will find Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto, who is Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Chewbacca all rolled into one.

Now, with the release of the eighth film in the multi-billion-dollar-grossing series, Diesel has added some Darth Vader to the tank.

Or, as one character in The Fate of the Furious astutely observes: “Dom Toretto has gone rogue.”

Why the hell Dom turns his back on his colourful crew of speed freaks, and then crosses over to the dark side is not all that important.

How all hell breaks loose is all that matters in The Fate of the Furious.

If you’ve been living off the fumes of the last few F & F movies — which have often collided head-on with genuine moments of goofy, guilty-pleasure greatness — then you’ll be pleased to learn there is more of that kooky comfort fuel burned here than ever before.

Let’s not bother with the plot so much. The screenwriters clearly haven’t, so why should we?

The need-to-know on why Dom has abandoned Team Toretto is confined to a bonkers blackmail scheme concocted by the most sinister computer hacker in the world, Cipher (Charlize Theron).

Diesel’s Dom with Charlize Theron’s Cipher in a scene from The Fate of the Furious. Picture: Matt Kennedy

Some dangerous gadgets will fall in and out of the wrong hands on a repeated basis. The future of the planet will be called into question on occasion. And a lot of stuff will be blown up at any available juncture.

As we have come to expect, the best action sequences in The Fate of the Furious keep switching from incredible to insane with ridiculous ease.

There’s no need to nitpick these spectacularly silly set pieces, which just keep audaciously locating the missing link between absolute acceleration and absurd exaggeration.

A key part of the juiced-up joy that comes from experiencing The Fate Of the Furious is processing the implausible scope of its highly kinetic action scenes on your own.

However, mention must made of the new peaks of craziness scaled by the new film’s finale. Let the record show a nuclear submarine somehow joining a high-speed chase across the Siberian tundra is going to be very hard to top in future instalments.

So what else is there that pleasingly seals The Fate pf the Furious?

As usual, Diesel’s Toretto gets all the best stunts and Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs gets all the best lines, while the lesser cohorts (Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Michelle Rodriguez and company) all make the most they can of their regulated screen time. No real surprises there, then.

As for fresh biz on the performance front, Theron does make for an imposing villain, even if she is slightly wasted emoting frumpily at a computer monitor a lot of the time.

Jason Statham brings some fresh energy into play while reprising his role as the British hardman Deckard, who has softened to the extent that he can now engage in lethal combat while carrying a live infant in a baby capsule.

Jason Statham’s Deckard with Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs look in serious trouble in this scene. Picture: Matt Kennedy

Oh, and in an inspired piece of comic cameo casting, Dame Helen Mirren coasts in and out view briefly as Deckard’s not-so-Dame-like mum.

Originally published as The Fate of the Furious is juiced-up joy with the finale hitting new peaks of craziness