Film Review: F9: THE FAST SAGA (2021): Vin Diesel and John Cena Keep It Watchable Despite Ridiculous Plot

F9: The Fast Saga Review

F9: The Fast Saga (2021) Film Review, a movie directed by Justin Lin, and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, John Cena, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Charlize Theron, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, Finn Cole, Kurt Russell, Lucas Black, Anna Sawai, Shad Moss, Thue Ersted Rasmussen, and Cardi B.

F9: The Fast Saga is the latest entry in a franchise which begun with The Fast and the Furious back in 2001. This film series has inspired a theme park ride at Universal and is most notable for its loss of one of the main action heroes from the films, Paul Walker, who died in 2013. During the course of these films, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jason Statham made appearances and got their own spinoff film, Hobbs and Shaw, as a result. Vin Diesel has become the film franchise’s main hero and now, John Cena is on board as his brother. F9: The Fast Saga is a lot of fun in its last hour as it unveils action sequences that could inspire new theme park attractions but getting to the fun requires a lot of patience as the film runs 2 hours and 25 minutes.

Vin Diesel is Dom Toretto who has settled down with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his son when the movie’s main story kicks into gear. This new film actually starts, though, with a look back at when Dom was younger. He had a brother named Jakob and their father, a race car driver, was mysteriously killed which altered Dom’s life forever. Back to present, the arrival of a new car on Dom’s property propels Dom and Letty to get their guns out and hide Dom’s son but it turns out that the car just has some old friends such as Roman (Tyrese Gibson) in it. These friends are there because they need Dom and Letty’s help. It seems the villain from the previous film, Cipher (Charlize Theron) has escaped on her way to prison thanks to some help from Dom’s brother Jakob (John Cena). Only with Dom’s help can our heroes can save the world as there is a device that can control worldwide security networks and they must prevent both halves of it from getting in to Cipher’s possession.

This film throws in everything but the kitchen sink throughout its lengthy running time. Nathalie Emmanuel serves as Ramsey, who in the film’s most ridiculous scene, gets the task of driving a truck around without having a driver’s license as Dom faces off with Jakob around the vicinity she is driving in. Scenes like this are hard to describe because they are so inane. Magnetism comes into the picture especially in this scene but I won’t tell you how. It’s not that this scene is actually bad but it’s flat. Emmanuel is funny but there’s no real tension in the sequence. There is also no doubt that Jakob will escape given the scene’s arrival early in the picture.

Some of the performers in the film are good but they don’t do much to advance the overall plot. In the early stages of the film, we see Kurt Russell reprising his role of Mr. Nobody who is in charge of national security but his scenes just feel like time filler. Helen Mirren pops up as jewel thief Magdalene Shaw who shares some dialogue with Dom as she drives them through London and although this conversation somewhat develops the plot, it also feels like filler and the information revealed is only somewhat plausible.

Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron is reduced to arguing with another bad guy in the film named Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) about which character Otto would be if he were in a Star Wars film. Such material is time consuming and eats up time that we don’t really need to waste. Let’s face it-the audience just wants their action scenes.

That being said, Dom and Jakob’s characters create the tension that makes the film work, even if the movie barely just scrapes by thanks to this aspect of the picture. Cena is intense in his role and as his relationship with Dom is put to the test, Cena and Diesel make their characters interesting throughout. They are pitted against each other but they are still brothers. I liked the idea of the good brother and the bad brother facing off. It’s probably been done before but this movie actually makes the concept work and the action scenes at the end display technical precision and are very compelling.

Tyrese Gibson and Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges’ characters in the film must team up to go to space at the end to save the world and I will say that it plays better than it sounds. This concept actually is more believable than the swinging car we see early in the film (I won’t get into it) and the aforementioned scene where Emmanuel’s character drives around town.

Jordana Brewster makes an appearance. She’s Paul Walker’s Brian’s love interest from the old films. Brewster is given some things to do here and acquits herself admirably while Sung Kang returns as Han, a fan favorite from the previous films. They’re OK and will give fans what they want though if you’re going into this film with no knowledge of the previous films, their presence won’t make things any easier to follow.

F9: The Fast Saga is fast-paced fun. It loses points for being too long but gains points for the terrific plotline with Diesel and Cena. There is so much craziness here, though, that Cardi B even turns up at one point in a surprise scene. Whether or not you enjoy the film may depend on how excited you are to know that piece of information.

 Rating: 7/10

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