Vin Diesel’s turbocharged franchise shows no sign of running out of fuel anytime soon

REVIEW: Big, loud, fast, dumb fun — without any brakes. The Fate of the Furious shows no sign of running out of fuel anytime soon.

THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS

Three stars

Director F. Gary Gray

Starring Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron

Rating M

Running time 136 minutes

Verdict Full-throttle franchise still has fuel

BIG, loud, fast, dumb fun — without any brakes.

That’s F. Gary Gray’s brief for the eighth film in this seemingly unstoppable franchise and he sticks to it.

But while Fate of the Furious is driven by the same nitrous oxide-fuelled engine as its hugely successful predecessors, the Straight Outta Compton director and his team make their mark with a few attention-grabbing accessories.

The crooks and villains in this turbocharged pursuit of a cyberterrorist bent on global domination (Charlize Theron and Helen Mirren) pop in a similar manner to their counterparts in a comic book adaptation

Dom (Vin Diesel) is “turned” by Charlize Theron’s villain in The Fate of the Furious. Picture: Supplied

And the infant that plays a key role in one of the film’s high-altitude action sequences is more precocious than Alec Baldwin’s animated Boss Baby.

With the help of CGI and some judicious edits, the kid mugs it mercilessly for the camera in a series of sight gags that include high fives, eye rolls and other assorted reaction shots.

Gray pushes his characters to the edge of caricature in a bold move that pays off maybe 50 per cent of the time.

The scene in which Dwayne Johnson’s government agent, Luke Hobbs, is approached with a new assignment while coaching his daughter’s soccer team, for example, falls very flat.

Vin Diesel’s character, Dominic Toretto, fares better — perhaps because the actor’s V8 growl of his voice anchors him in this super-grunt world.

The Fate of the Furious opens in Havana, Cuba, where Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are honeymooning.

Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Dom (Diesel) honeymoon in Havana. Picture: Supplied

Clearly, this state of blissful, languid happiness can’t last.

Theron’s character, Cipher, is the catalyst for what happens next, forcing Dom to betray his “family” in a move that he executes with maximum vehicular destruction.

The emotional stakes are high in the eighth film in the Fast and Furious franchise, but plot is still subservient to the set pieces.

Furious 7’s heart-stopping “air drop,” in which the team parachuted their souped-up cars out of a plane over Colorado, is clearly a hard act to follow.

Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson get ready for some hard-core action. Picture: Supplied

Fate of the Furious whets its audience’s appetite with a giant wrecking ball that swings like a pendulum through the streets of Berlin.

And there’s a mightily impressive zombie vehicle chase sequences through downtown Manhattan in which it rains cars.

But the piece de resistance involves an explosive, high-speed chase across a frozen lake involving cars, snowmobiles, armoured personnel carriers, tanks and a nuclear submarine that crashes up through the ice.

The Fate of the Furious is unlikely to win any new converts, but it should satisfy existing fans and petrol heads.

The Fate of the Furious is now screening

Originally published as Vin Diesel’s turbocharged franchise shows no sign of running out of fuel anytime soon