A friend of mine had to review the new Fast and Furious movie and invited me to tag along. It was my first time back inside a movie theater since March 2020. What a surreal feeling – masks required but then we were told we could remove them once inside the socially distanced amphitheater.
A cavernous echo chamber, the venue was maybe 25% filled, if that, so the supposed raucous atmosphere of the cinematic car crash shenanigans felt distanced and isolating rather than, uh, bringing together-y. What’s a word for that? This pandemic has really messed up my brain — words, focus, memories. There’s a word I should use here. Ah, well… since the filmmakers of F9 couldn’t be bothered to put much effort in continuity or logic or characters or much of anything beyond spectacle, why should I here?
Before the show started, the press flack asked reviewers and audience members to be mindful of the embargo on spoilers/reviews. As far as I am aware, the only real spoiler of the movie that wasn’t spelled out in the marketing is that it’s not very good. Honestly, it’s kinda terrible, especially considering its wanton disregard for humanity and “civilians” as the immortal “gods” of street racing/spy games wreak havoc globetrotting on a hunt for an underbaked movie macguffin.
Non spoiler-y review: Hard pass, laborious movie.
