F9 (2021)
By 2021, the Fast and Furious franchise had long since left the street racing scene of Los Angeles in the rear-view mirror. What began in 2001 as a pleasingly straightforward film about cars and petty crime (you can read Macca's thoughts on where it all started over at The Fast and the Furious) had, through a series of escalating instalments, transformed itself into something closer to a globe-trotting spy thriller with a preference for the impossible. The series had its genuine high points, Fast Five in particular is widely regarded as the moment it found its stride as a full-blown action spectacle, and even entries like Fast and Furious 6 managed to hold the thing together with a reasonable amount of momentum and coherent set-piece logic. By the time F9 arrived, though, the franchise was carrying a considerable amount of accumulated baggage: spinoffs, tributes to the late Paul Walker, an ever-expanding ensemble, and the kind of internal mythology that requires a wall chart to follow properly.
F9 sits as the ninth main entry in the saga (tenth if you count The Fate of the Furious, which introduced the idea of Dom Toretto going rogue, a plot thread the series has never quite recovered from with full conviction). Justin Lin returns to the director's chair here, having previously helmed four entries in the franchise between Tokyo Drift and Fast and Furious 6. He is a competent and experienced hand at this sort of large-scale, logistically demanding production, and Universal clearly trusted him to stabilise a series that had felt slightly rudderless under F. Gary Gray's direction. The budget was reportedly in the region of 200 million dollars, which, given what ends up on screen, is a figure that invites its own questions. The premise this time centres on Dom being confronted by a figure from his past: his younger brother Jakob, a trained assassin and formidably skilled driver who has, apparently, been operating entirely off the family radar for years. It is the kind of retcon that serialised franchises lean on when they have run out of external threats and need to manufacture emotional stakes from somewhere.
John Cena steps into the role of Jakob, and it is a casting choice that carries a certain surface logic: Cena is physically imposing, has demonstrated genuine comedic timing in other projects, and has the kind of screen presence that can anchor an action film without much support from the script. Vin Diesel returns as Dom, as dependably granite-faced as ever, while Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, and Ludacris all reprise their long-standing roles with the ease of people who could perform these parts in their sleep (whether or not that is entirely a good thing is a reasonable question). Jordana Brewster and Sung Kang also return, the latter's reappearance being one of the film's more loudly trailered selling points. The ensemble remains one of the franchise's genuine assets: a diverse, internationally flavoured group with enough shared history to generate warmth on screen, even when the material around them is polished but unremarkable.
F9: The Fast Saga (2021), directed by Justin Lin, marks a low point for the franchise not seen since Tokyo Drift, and that's saying something for a series that long ago abandoned realism. On the surface, it delivers what fans expect: explosive set pieces, globe-trotting spectacle, and the familiar "family" mantra repeated like a creed. The action scenes are technically competent (cars flip, buildings collapse, and physics takes a back seat) but even by the franchise's increasingly absurd standards, F9 struggles to justify its own existence beyond contractual obligation.
The casting of John Cena as Dom's long-lost brother Jakob feels like a missed opportunity (and the tagged on cameo from Cardi B felt grating). Cena brings physical presence and occasional charm, but the script gives him little to work with beyond brooding glares and exposition-heavy monologues. The reveal of the "socket wrench" victim from Dom's past is a nice nostalgic touch, and the tribute to Paul Walker near the finale is genuinely heartfelt, a brief moment of sincerity in an otherwise overstuffed spectacle. But these emotional beats are drowned out by a plot that careens from one implausible twist to the next, never stopping to ask if any of it matters.
And then there's the space sequence. Yes, you read that right: two street racers, in a souped-up car, tethered to a rocket, flying into orbit to disable a satellite. It's not just unbelievable, it's a full-frontal assault on narrative coherence and viewer intelligence. At that point, the film isn't asking you to suspend disbelief; it's demanding you abandon it entirely. For a franchise that once thrived on grounded(ish) car culture, this feels like the ultimate betrayal of its own identity. I can only imagine in Fast and the Furious X they'll go to hell to battle satan himself.
F9 is a bloated, self-indulgent entry that mistakes scale for substance and noise for excitement. It has moments (Cena's physicality, the Walker tribute, a few decent chases) but they're buried under layers of ludicrous plotting and franchise fatigue. If you're powering through the saga out of loyalty, you'll find enough to keep going. But if you're hoping for a return to form, or even just a coherent story? You'll likely leave feeling exactly as I did: glad to be nearly done.
F9 arrived at a particular moment for blockbuster filmmaking, one where audience patience for franchise entries that feel like connective tissue rather than complete stories was beginning to wear visibly thin. Whether it revived or tested your enthusiasm for the series probably depended on how much goodwill you had left in the tank. For those keeping score at home, there is a certain grim fascination in watching a franchise test its own limits in real time, each film apparently daring the next to go further. The question the series has been quietly avoiding for some time is not whether audiences will follow it anywhere, but whether there is anywhere left worth going.
Rating: ★★ | Year: 2021 | Watched: 2026-05-27
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for F9 (2021) on YouTube
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Amazon Prime Video · Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
