Somebody get Bruce Willis on the horn, and we’ll have ourselves a proper movie for Episode 9.
Then came Jason Statham, then Kurt Russell, and now we have a villain played by Gray’s Italian Job star Charlize Theron. With due respect to the actor, who is clearly missed by his colleagues in real life, it isn’t as if the Furious franchise is hurting for dramatis personae: When Dwayne Johnson came aboard in the fifth film, things started to feel crowded. His character is mentioned only twice: once, in a line that cements his retirement to idyllic family life, and later, in a predictable sentimental touch suggesting he’ll always be part of the gang in spirit. Fate delivers exactly what fans have come to expect, for better and for worse, and it would be a shock to see it disappoint producers at the box office.Īfter being forced to rejigger the last picture mid-production when Walker died, the filmmakers let him rest in peace here. In fact, it recycles plot-twisting devices from earlier chapters and keeps action firmly in the street-hoods-save-the-world neighborhood entered a couple of years ago. The result isn’t as big a gear-shift as some fans expected in the wake of original castmember Paul Walker’s death.
Gary Gray would seem to have been a no-brainer to direct a Fast and Furious installment - especially once Vin Diesel and his thrill-seeking clan segued from mere street racing to heists and other forms of high-speed mayhem.īut careers make left turns (in this case, a misfiring sequel to Get Shorty), and it took the success of Straight Outta Compton to get Gray in, well, the driver’s seat of this eighth installment of the stupendously successful cars-and-guns action franchise. After his surprisingly fun remake of The Italian Job in 2003, whose most memorable sequence revolved around a scene-stealing Mini Cooper, F.
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