Most of the time when people walk into a movie, they know what to expect. Pixar is going to make you feel things, Christopher Nolan will make you leave the theater scratching your head wondering what just happened (and what the actors were saying, but that’s a different story), and Fast and Furious will let you watch gleefully as cars jump between buildings. And that’s perfectly fine! Not every piece of cinema must be a Citizen Kane or Seven Samurai; in fact, it’s that escapism that draws a lot of crowds to them in the first place. The question becomes, when does something become so over-the-top and ridiculous that it moves from dumb fun into truly brainless? F9 ponders this its entire run time, and while it runs dangerously close to that precipice, it doesn’t jump into it.
Flashback to 1989 when a young Jack Toretto and his brother Jakob watch their father brutally die on the raceway in a moment that splits the brothers apart never to reconcile. In the present, Jack (Vin Diesel) and his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) have happily stepped away from the crazy lives they used to lead and are raising his young child in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. They get drawn back into the machinations of the underworld when they learn that Jakob (John Cena) is crossing the globe collecting pieces to Aries, a superweapon that would essentially allow him to conquer the world. The gang from across the entire franchise gets back together and must do everything they can to keep Jacob and the forces he commands from laying their hands on a power that would destroy civilization.
That sounds rather basic, right? And it is, but the point of this film and the rest in the series is that you never need to let the plot get in the way of the story. Does anyone really care why Jack and his crew are battling bad guys and managing to escape gunfights even more unscathed than Rambo? No, of course not. We are there for the pretty people, the sexy cars, the incredible stunts, and a few obvious plot twists thrown in to spice things up. It’s not high art, nor is it trying to be, and that is an admirable trait that other movies in this genre should learn.
F9 knows it’s ridiculous. In fact, a few of the characters mention how their lives are almost like being in a movie during one of its many meta moments. It revels in the fact it is just one action scene after the other barely connected by cheesy dialogue, and it’s all the better for it. It’s incredibly obvious when a cast and the filmmakers are having fun with what they do, and this is a shining example of what can be done when everyone is in on the joke.
There are moments that push the boundaries of the suspension of disbelief to near breaking levels, and while that may make you roll your eyes, you’re still having so much fun that it doesn’t matter. This is a world where the laws of physics don’t exist, and if you’re going to be annoyed that it believes audience members don’t understand how magnets work, then this isn’t for you. As probably the first big-budget film that a lot of the public will be seeing in theaters again, it’s exactly the type of welcome any of us could be hoping for. I walked out saying it was literally the dumbest thing I have ever seen, and I can’t think of a higher compliment to give it.