[Review] The Fate Of The Furious (4.5/10)

I first heard of this... "feud" between Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, and I did not give it any weight as this could have been a marketing ploy or a private issue between the two actors.

But after seeing The Fate Of The Furious, I am furious. That "feud" that these two humongous middle aged "men" have cost some of the scenes in this movie to a point where it distracted the enjoyment and the immersive nature of the story.

The two actors never shared conversations face to face, and when they were supposed to be in a scene together, it may even have been CGI effects to put them together.

There was a scene where Johnson's character could have run towards Diesel's character and have a very interesting fight, but then through the lamest reason with police arriving on the scene that Johnson had to go out of character and run away.

Not that this particular reason had caused the movie a higher rating, because this was nowhere as enjoyable as the last one. Another big issue I had was with the horrible dialogue that was cringe-worthy a lot of times. Especially when they took themselves way too seriously or made it philosophical and life changing. This franchise should never have been any of those things. So when Diesel said, "I changed him," I was out of that scene immediately.

While some of the action sequences and stunts in the seventh movie defied physics, I still found them enjoyable. Here, with all those remote controlled cars and the sports cars on ice; it looked and felt stupid. Sometimes we still need some valid reasons to be doing some things.

My biggest beef came with how this particular installment made the two best villains of the series (Jason Statham and Luke Evans) now part of the gang. I thought everything about Diesel's character was family. And Sung Kang's character getting killed meant nothing now?

And that whole issue with the baby and the ex-girlfriend, I don't even want to get started on it.

The only thing that I really enjoyed with Charlize Theron's performance, and I am grasping at straws here. To have her as a villain was refreshing.

After the resurgence of the franchise with Johnson giving it a jolt on the fifth movie, this has been the worst of the bunch. Diesel and Johnson acting like spoilt brats did not help.