F9 (2021)
There's a moment in F9 where two characters are launched into actual outer space in a modified car strapped to a rocket. Not metaphorically. Not in a dream sequence. Into orbit. And the film just... carries on, as if that's a perfectly reasonable thing to happen in a story that began with blokes nicking DVD players off lorries. That one sequence tells you everything you need to know about where this franchise is right now, and none of it is good.
I've been on this ride since the beginning. I remember what it felt like to watch The Fast and the Furious for the first time, all nitrous and neon and genuine street-level tension. I remember the shock of Fast Five pulling off the trick of going bigger while somehow getting better. F9 is the opposite of that trick. It goes so much bigger that it disappears up its own exhaust pipe.
Justin Lin is back in the director's chair, which should mean something. He knows this world. He helped build it. But whatever instincts guided him through the series' best entries feel buried here under contractual obligation and franchise machinery. The set pieces are technically competent. Cars flip. Buildings collapse. Physics files a formal complaint and leaves the building. But competence isn't excitement, and spectacle without stakes is just noise with a budget.
The big swing of this instalment is John Cena as Jakob, Dom's previously unmentioned long-lost brother. And look, Cena has genuine screen presence. He's not the problem. The script is the problem. Jakob is given almost nothing to work with beyond brooding glares and great slabs of exposition. For an actor who can be genuinely funny and physically magnetic, it's a waste. The Cardi B cameo, meanwhile, felt grating in a way I couldn't quite shake, a celebrity-shaped distraction that adds nothing except the vague sense that someone in the marketing department was pleased with themselves.
There are things that work, briefly. The reveal of the socket wrench moment from Dom's past is a nice bit of nostalgic texture, the kind of character detail the earlier films did well. And the tribute to Paul Walker near the end is quietly affecting. It's a genuine moment of sincerity, and it lands. But it's almost immediately swallowed by the surrounding chaos, which is a shame, because those few seconds of warmth reminded me what this series can do when it remembers it has a heart.
The space sequence, though. I keep coming back to it. The franchise has been asking us to suspend disbelief for years, and I've been happy enough to go along with it. The Fate of the Furious pushed it, certainly. But sending street racers into orbit isn't a push, it's a full-frontal assault on narrative coherence. At that point the film isn't borrowing goodwill, it's demanding you hand over your brain at the door and accept whatever it fancies throwing at you. I kept thinking: if this is where we are in film nine, what's next? Dom drives into hell and drag races Satan? Genuinely, I wouldn't rule it out.
What makes it sting is the memory of what this series was capable of. The grounded, grimy car culture of the early films. The genuine emotion of the Walker years. The ridiculous-but-committed action of the middle stretch. F9 mistakes scale for substance and volume for energy. It's bloated, self-indulgent, and often deeply tedious between the explosions.
Two stars. If you're powering through the saga out of loyalty, you'll find just enough to keep you moving. A decent chase here, Cena's physicality there, that Walker moment. But if you're hoping for coherence, or even just the sense that somebody on set asked "does this make any sense at all?" before saying action, you'll finish it feeling exactly as I did: relieved it's over, and slightly worried about what comes next.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2021 | Watched: 2026-05-27
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Netflix · Amazon Prime Video · Netflix Standard with Ads · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
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Watch in the US
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