Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Number nine is not a charm


Andrew Hamlin
Northwest Asia Weekly

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I took the “F9” seat, looking forward to nothing new in the long-running “Fast and Furious” series. I am not wrong. In more than 145 minutes, I saw a lot of amazing actions, a lot of things exploded, and a lot of incredible stunts that pushed the franchise further into comedy. What I didn’t get was an original idea, position, perspective, or emotion that was even vague.

Frankly speaking, “F9” disappointed me. I returned to the cinema 15 months later and I felt good. The creamy popcorn in the Regal Cinemas made me smile, as did the reclining seats, once I figured out how to use them again. However, the impact of this idea of ​​being washed into transparent, a photocopy of something that might have seemed new 20 years ago, made me frowned and reminded me of how formulaic entertainment I was, not asking viewers and reducing feedback. In our reopening world, what must we expect.

Our story, about its content, starts again with Dominic “Dom” Toretto played by Van Diesel.

He is trying to get away from the world with his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his young son. Naturally, hiding only lasts about 90 seconds. His other old crew members appeared and demanded his attention.

This time, it is to hunt down and capture a super secret, super powerful device, and let its owner conquer the world. We have all seen it before. Protecting it from bad guys involves traveling to far-flung places on the planet, close calls, narrow escapes, and the team stopping at critical intervals to discuss their long-standing relationship with each other and making sure that everyone is actually Very cool.

Justin Lin is an excellent director, but in this script co-written by Lin and Daniel Casey, he does not provide himself with any substantive content. Song Kang played the seemingly immortal Han Lue (he originated from the role of Lin’s movie “Good Luck Tomorrow”) and played a charm. His own wild story seems unbelievable and from the heart-he can even improve the movie with 10 minutes of screening time.

Also worthy of attention is the newcomer Anna Sawai, a native of New Zealand and of Japanese descent, from playing “Annie” in popular stage musicals, to singing with the popular J-Pop choir FAKY, to the female ninja (“Ninja” Assassin” ) And an emerging professional woman (“Pachinko”). She is agile, stylish and charming. I have more expectations of her.

The only new wrinkle in this section stems from the discovery of Dominique’s long-lost brother. Jacob (John Cena) feels humiliated by Dom, and is determined to do everything opposite to Dom. Therefore, when the opportunity to conquer the world appeared, Jakob naturally stepped in to seek verification and destruction of Dom.

But even this seems blunt. The film has no lines, no emphasis, no pause, no extraction from Hallmark cards, and then thinning, stretching and fading by excessive use in other places. The motor roared, the soundtrack rang, and the metal creaked. Justin Lin can direct this with his eyes closed.

I left the credits, and then set off to catch the bus. Two lunatics screamed at each other across the street from Pike. A homeless man passes by on an electric scooter. He had no money to buy a motor, so he had to push forward with one foot. Other homeless people laughed at him.

This is our new normal, the same as the old normal. The resurrection of various garden troubles, including empty entertainment. I wish I could frown less.

“F9” is currently being shown in local theaters.

Andrew can be at info@nwasianweekly.com.



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