https://share.descript.com/view/1zI2WLn619s
Welcome to REEL Film Reviewed the show that delivers short spoiler free reviews of films, TV shows, and limited seats. Followed by a deep dive discussion brought to you by your host, Kris Chaney, here is REEL Film Reviewed.
What’s up everyone. Welcome back to REEL Film Reviewed, tonight we’re reviewing Fast 9. This was a listener’s choice poll winner this last week, but it was tied with another film, a horror film, which I also reviewed. So thank you everyone for keeping me on my toes. Let’s get into the spoiler for your review.
The ninth installment of the fast and furious franchise brings the crew together again, to face off against an old enemy and an unexpected one, keeping with the continuance of the family franchise as they call it. Most of the original cast is back together. This includes some beloved characters from Tokyo drift, such as Lucas, black and shad Moss reprising their roles.
Jordanna Brewster makes her usual appearance, but gets a little bit more involved than she has in previous films. Kind of assisting in keeping the ghost image of Brian alive in the films. In this case, her involvement sheds light on a very obvious trait with these films: keeping Paul Walker’s beloved character, Brian alive and screen.
We’ll talk a little bit more about that in the deep dive discussion after this spoiler free review. If you’ve been watching these films, since the beginning, you’re aware that the original street car racing theme has been abandoned for the high speed heist angle. This has gotten mixed reviews since the original cast announced that they were returning to continue the franchise.
In the last installment, we saw them defy the odds with cool new action with the dropping of the cars from high altitudes, from the tops of buildings and things like that. And a hip new computer villain, Cipher played by Charlie’s Theron. Well, now we have Ludacris and Tyrese in space… in space.
We’ll dive into that one more in the deep dive, following the spoiler free review. There is a surprise character that in my opinion, was a sad and failed attempt to introduce some new drama into the series. I felt that this character in the end, their storyline derailed the plot and confused the story which had carried over from the last installment.
Sometimes there can be a little bit too much. We know at the end of Fast 8, that Vin Diesel’s father to son and. The mother of his son gets killed by Cipher and Cipher gets away. So we all are ready. Cipher demonstrates being one of the most ruthless villains that the team has ever faced going into this.
We were kind of expecting Cipher to be kind of the main person and the bad-ass but this surprise character and the storyline that came with them, just kind of completely derailed that. Giving my REEL Review. I am giving this two and a half stars due to a poor and boring story, confusing action, and numerous obvious continuity errors.
The sad attempt to revive this film with flashbacks into the Torretto past, left me uninterested in the direction of this franchise and confirmed in my belief that this should have ended with 8. Not to mention left them wide open for unnecessary continuity errors. Fast nine was released in 2021 and was directed by Justin Lin.
It stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Charlize Theron, John Cena, Ludacris, and Tyrese Gibson. It is rated PG -13 and has a runtime of two hours and 23 minutes that you can’t get back. It is available to rent or buy from Amazon. And as always on Amazon prime video.
Alright here is these spoiler alert, warning, those new to REEL Film Reviewed, after this point, I will discuss this review further potentially and likely revealing spoilers. Thank you for listening to the spoiler free review. I’ll be back after a word about my sponsors.
Enjoying REEL Film Reviewed? Ever thought about making a podcast of your own? When I started, I didn’t know anything about podcasting or making an internet show. Luckily I found nchor. And I’m cheap. So cost was very important to me. Anchor is 100% free and it’s everything you need to make a podcast all in one place. The creation tools allow you to edit and record your podcast, right from your phone or your computer.
My first few episodes are recorded right on my phone, and the process was super simple. Anchor will distribute your podcast for you. So it can be heard on multiple listening apps like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more.
You get notified whenever you’re added to a new listening app and I’ve lost count on how many there are. Speaking as someone who tried multiple platforms, I can honestly tell you, Anchor helped me easily fall in love with podcasting and I recorded every single week since. So stop hesitating, start having fun, and start your podcast. Right now. Download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started.
Welcome back, everyone getting into the deep dive discussion about this film. I do want to get it out of the way. First. I am a huge fan of these movies. I was a big fan of the original, obviously The Fast and the Furious.
My cousin took me and my other, my younger cousin to the movie theater. And it was our very first movie hopping experience. We saw like an American pie movie. I saw The Fast and the Furious, we saw, I can’t even remember what the other two films were, but The Fast and the Furious was the best movie that we saw that day.
We loved it. I couldn’t wait to get to the arcade in the theaters just so I could get in a car. I couldn’t even drive yet when that movie came out. So I think I was a teenager, but not ready to drive yet. That was a fantastic movie. I loved it. I do have a thing with these movies. I didn’t like the second one at all.
It was just the dialogue, I didn’t care for. I have watched them all in order since they all came out, I do own the first eight. And I do like them. I even liked the second one. I actually didn’t see Tokyo Drift until they started coming out with the reunited they’ll, we’ll call that the reunited ones.
That’s when I started, when I went back and I watched Tokyo drift. And I’m glad that I did, because those of you that have seen one through nine or one through eight. You definitely understand the value of seeing that movie. And I’m will tell you that in Fast 9, we see how important seeing Tokyo Drift was because obviously the biggest surprise of the entire movie was Han is alive.
And I thought that they were going to go that route. I didn’t care. I was happy to see him, of course, because I am, like I said, a fast and furious fan, but I didn’t care for the way that they abandoned that emotional buildup in that devastation that they gave us. I’m not a big fan of intense. Tragedy.
Sometimes it doesn’t make any sense. Sometimes you can shock your audience so much when they love a character and they didn’t expect something bad to happen to them. That happened. Good example of that is the L word. When a certain character passes away. I won’t spoiler that for anyone else, but there’s a character that does pass away in that show and it devastated the audience so much so that the show creator stated that that was her biggest regret.
She stated she only had one regret and it was the killing of that character. So sometimes you can, I don’t want to say it, ’cause, I’m not going to presume to tell an artist about their decision making, but as an audience, I didn’t necessarily care for it as much as I like to see him. And I was happy. It kind of just made this movie just even crazier.
It’s just like, oh, okay. So Han’s coming back from the dead. We’ve got Ludacris and Tyrese in space. First of all, let’s talk about that scene. Moving on from that. The scene with Ludacris and Tyrese in space. When they first reunite with Twinkie, I’ll say that Twinkie, and the crew from Tokyo Drift, they’re testing a, I think it’s a Fierro that’s attached to a rocket engine and they’re like, oh, yay. It didn’t blow up. And then after a few seconds, it blows up.
I may have missed it, but I’m not really understanding the competence that they had, especially those two. Getting into this thing. Like, it’s just, it was completely not to say that it’s, I don’t want to say, I’m, I’m hard to, it’s hard for me to say unrealistic when it comes to filmmaking, but that was just one of the most out there pieces, even for this movie and with it changing directions from the streetcar racing situations to the heist situation.
It just took a really strange, weird direction with this films. The other plot twist, in addition to these crazy events that they’ve got going on, Han coming back and Ludacris and Tyrese in space, trying to crash into this satellite because we know Cipheris also in this film. We know in Fast 8, she gets away.
So yes, it was. Natural that Cipher would be in this. That’s kind of where that technical side came from. But plot twist, Dominic and Mia have a younger brother he’s played by John Cena, which is hilarious because I was kind of curious if they would be seen as this. I didn’t know who was bigger between John Cena or Vin Diesel.
So it was kind of interesting to see how that was going to play out, but it was random. It just felt really random. There was no foreshadowing. Nothing like that, that gave you any hint, no hidden person in any scenes and something different that they did in this, is they flashed back to Dominic Torretto’s past.
This is why we learned that he has a brother and that’s why they flashed back to the past. And they give us this whole story. It’s like film 9 adnd you’re adding stuff to the story? You’re adding whole pieces to the story, because at the end of Fast 9, obviously, you know, we see Vin Diesel, give him some keys. You know, somebody gave me some keys for a second chance a long time ago, you know, reference and he takes off.
And so it leaves it open for him to return in the 10th one, I could really care less about seeing John Siena added to these films in this role that he, it is what it is. He’s in here, but it’s not enough for me. I don’t think I’m going to see fast 10, to be honest with you. If it ends up, if it’s just going to be furious at this point, I’m good on it.
I think this movie kind of took it for me. The other thing that I do want to bring up is not to be disrespectful, but this movie, felt like it had a lot of random action danced around a ghost of a character. And we all know that they did not kill Brian off after the tragic death of Paul Walker. I liked that and I liked what they did with it.
And it’s been okay up until this point. When they started making them without him. I know they wanted to continue that that was something that all of the actors were very vocal about and that they wanted to continue the series. As long as fans wanted to see it, they wanted to honor him in that way. But this film just really made it kind of, I don’t want to say obvious.
It just made it kind of about the keeping, the spirit of his character alive and off screen. It was more a distraction and it was more focused on how are they going to keep his memory alive in this film? And I did like the ending when Vin Diesel said, wait a minute, there’s a seat missing. And Mia goes, he’s coming in and you see the Nissan Skyline pull up.
You don’t see into the car or anything like that, but it’s, it’s presumed that it’s Brian. All Fast and Furious fans know, Brian always liked imported. You always drove imported cars. That was his thing. Vin Diesel has always been that American muscle. So that’s why he always rocks that car. That was the other thing too.
Usually in the last one, I’ll be honest. There was a ton of fantastic cars. We got a lot of great things out of that and the nature of the series was always car racing. So they’re just getting random pieces. And I will say it’s one of my favorites, but random pieces like placing a really rare and nice Porsche with Helen Mirren as she’s stealing a necklace and getting away.
Dom is getting some information from her. We do see some cool cars is, but it’s pretty much just driving them to, and from these bunkers where they carry out these crazy ass missions, that in all reality wouldn’t really happen. It’s kind of like they’re merging into the Triple X movies except instead of just Triple X, he’s got a team.
So that’s kind of what it’s turning into. And then you’ve got the kind of strange situation or the strange scenes. Dominic and Letty and his son, Brian, and they live on this farm. That’s how it opened up. They live on this farm out in the middle of nowhere. He’s working on the tractor and things like that.
And it’s just not in the nature of the character of this movie. And I get that things adapt, but I just didn’t care for it. It did not hit with me. It seemed like a jumbled up mess, because there’s another piece to it. At first we thought that Cipher was the bad guy, right. That wasn’t exactly it. She was the bad guy, but then she ended up getting caught and there was another bad guy.
I don’t even know his name. I don’t even remember it, but he was some sort of international, he was British, I believe, but he was some sort of international diplomat or his father was. And he, and Dominic’s Torretto’s little brother were working together and that’s what ended up happening. So there was just a lot of pieces, jumbled a mess in my opinion, but there wasn’t a whole lot of motivation for us to see the next one, but there was opportunity and an opening for it.
So again, a lot different than the direction it initially took. I was very disappointed. Justin Lin is usually pretty good with these films, he’s directed a few of them in the past, but this one just didn’t land for me. So to summarize about what I didn’t like, I did have a few things that I did, like starting with how the movie started off.
It was interesting to see Dom on a farm and Letty. And I think that’s what killed it for me though, was when Letty came out, she’d cut her hair. Like she had settled into almost mom life, but she was missing the life. There wasn’t a whole lot of buildup, the action or the drama started right away.
And there wasn’t really a whole lot of backstory to it. There wasn’t really any follow-up. They just, at least in some of the other movies, there was at least a day before the action got real, but literally that day we had, Tyrese and Ludacris rolling up and telling them that Mr. Nobody was involved in this accident and sent them on this crazy mission and things like that.
So he said, well, we only, they only sent it, he only sent it to us. So we have to go and you know, Michelle Rodriguez playing Letty. She always does really good, but she just didn’t fit that life. It didn’t look like it fit her. And it made sense when she was, she didn’t even hesitate. But the thing is, is that they made her look like she had settled in and absorbed.
And I mean, maybe that was intentional that she had, obviously it was intentional for her to appear like she had settled in, but literally the next time you see her, she’s got her bag. She doesn’t even, there’s no discussion nothing she’s going, and I know that that’s kind of characteristic for her.
So that made sense to me, but it’s just, you know, it was just really fast in the beginning. So then we get to the action or the first little bit of action, because obviously Dom does meet them there eventually after thinking about it, he somehow hands off the kids. And that’s the funny part. At one point, they referenced that like Mia says, I guess maybe that’s what happened.
He left the kids with Mia and Brian, and then when Mia gets there, he, she tells him that the kids are with Brian. There was just some things that not necessarily were continuity errors, but there was a lot left to assumption. And I feel like a lot of them were obvious assumptions. So I’m not really mad at that, but it was a little bit of pieces of story going along in with all of this action that was going on.
And you had a lot of things going on. I came into this movie what’s going on with Cipher. And that’s what you started with was Mr. Nobody had caught Cipher and then his plane went down or something like that. And it’s Mr. Nobody, which is the reason why I said it like that. We all know Mr. Nobody will probably pop up in Fast 10, just crazy shit.
The whole thing with Han just shows you how crazy Mr. Nobody is and how limitless his supply and resources are. Cipher kind of gets put in this cage and she’s just chilling. This guy that it’s like this little Weasley guy that’s in charge, but then there’s this big guy and oh, wait, that’s also Dom and Mia’s little brother, then you’ve got Dom and Michelle Rodriguez, you know, the normal crew that’s going after whoever.
And then you get Mia coming because yeah, I get it. He’s her brother. But Brian has showed up for less and talk about somebody who was missing the life. Remember when he was that in the beginning of, I can’t remember which one it was, but at the beginning he was in the van dropping off little, can’t remember what their kid’s name is my bad, but he was dropping off their son and he just was missing the life so much.
His heart was racing, at any little thing, he was ready and he jumped at it. So it was interesting to me to see. They continued to say, and they made it a point to say, the kids are with Brian and I’m like, that would just never happen. Brian would never let me Mia, come flying halfway around wherever they were by herself while he was at home with the kids.
It just would not happen, it’s not realistic. They’re turning him into a little winkling character in order to keep him off screen because he’s not around anymore. And I get it. But sometimes you don’t need to make a point about it. I mean, I, I know that they needed to because she needed to be, she needed to say something about why she was there and not him.
And the reference was because it’s my brother. And I’m like, okay. And she does say, I got this, I understand the implication. It’s just, it’s hard. It’s hard. What they’re trying to do with it. I understand it. I think really it’s just ultimately Jordana Brewster. I do like her, but the Mia character just doesn’t make sense anymore without Brian, in my opinion.
And I think her presence in the film ends up hurting its, I don’t want to say credibility, but hurts its overall strength and its core and its message. We don’t forget, those of us that liked these films, we don’t forget that he’s not here anymore. And we miss him. We like seeing him and I think they exited him the last movie that he was in. I thought it was fantastic.
It does bring a tear to your eye, even when you’re this hard car racing fan, you know, heist movie fan. It still was sad as hell because this was a tragedy and it doesn’t happen, you know, but this isn’t the first time that anything like this has happened, it’s fine to not kill off the character.
Totally fine. But you do need to kind of kill off what’s associated with him. You can reference, but it makes it weird when she’s there and he’s not. Moving on from that, the next thing is the random back and forth that I mentioned where it’s flashes back. And when I first saw this in the film, I thought it was kind of cool.
I was like, okay, this is cool. But the issue was that I had was that the character that they got to play a young Vin Diesel, it’s hard. It’s, I mean, it’s, as much as he looks like a grown baby, it’s probably pretty hard to find somebody that fits Vin Diesel. So I understand that. I think he did as well as you could.
I think it was just a weird situation. I get what happened with his dad. He told his son that he needed to screw with his engine in order for him to not owe these people money anymore or whatever. But I felt like that was really random. I don’t know what son would do that to a father, even if he told him to, I just don’t see it happening, especially the younger one.
It just wasn’t something that I saw, even if the initial plan was just to hurt him. It. It makes sense to me, that part, I didn’t really necessarily care for. It seemed like it was going to be cool until I found out what the story was and then I didn’t necessarily care for it. And my big thing was I had a problem with the existence of John Cena’s character.
I just thought he was completely irrelevant and randomly placed. Odd add at this stage, not to mention you’re doing that in the same episode that you bring Han back. And again, I don’t think I need to talk about the whole Han thing anymore. I think I covered that pretty well that happy to see him, but his presence again, like Jordana Brewster.
It just does not. I’m sorry. Jordana Brewster plays Mia for those of you that don’t know, it wasn’t a hit for me. I didn’t miss Han well enough to bring back his character the way that they did it was just weird. And Mr. Nobody, supposedly. The, and that was the other thing, so Mr. Nobody was supposedly the one that staged this whole thing.
Well, he is, he confirms, he is, he’s the one that staged the whole thing. Han tells everybody that’s how it goes down. But what I didn’t care for was that when you see Tokyo Drift and then you see the entrance of Jason Stratham’s character, it was great. It was perfect as much as I hated that they killed Han that made it make sense to me when he said you don’t know me, but you’re going to, and Jason Stratham’s character comes and I’m like, oh, and I thought it was genius because I didn’t, it’s almost like he wrote it like he knew that was going to happen.
I really appreciated that. And I feel like by bringing Han back, they kind of took away from the cool twist that they were able to accomplish with these movies that were carrying the story over from periods where there weren’t any movies being made. And now I feel like they’re just commercialized.
It’s all about the comedy banter. They’re all kind of turning into the same thing, kind of repetitive. And to be honest with you, I wasn’t really sure how it was going to be, but I’m really curious about the Hobbs and Shaw series. Now, at this point, I could give a crap about fast, about the fast and the furious.
I can promise you that this will probably be the last one that I watch, but Hobbs and Shaw is most likely going to be a little thing. I know they got another film coming out and I really enjoyed that. It was really funny. So I’ll probably continue that, but outside of that, this film just didn’t have, it didn’t add any value to the series.
It didn’t add any interest. And it was very disappointing in relation to some of the previous stories. And even in the last one, eight was a little bit out there, but still kind of. I liked it. I liked the little twist to it. The baby and everything was a little, like I said, it was a little, it pushed it a little bit, but it was still okay.
But this one just completely missed the mark for me. So that is my review. Thank you for listening everyone, I’ll catch you next time.
Thanks for listening to REEL Film Reviewed before I go, show some love for your favorite podcast by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen. Check out the REEL Film Reviewed website, reel-film-reviewed.productions to stay up to date on episode releases, podcast updates, episode transcriptions, and more. Follow REEL Film Reviewed on Twitter @reelfilmpkc, check out the online store, REEL Merch to pick up some gear to represent, transcription service by Podcasting Network. Happy watching everyone!
REEL Film Reviewed Podcast 