F9: The Fast Saga: ***
At this point, I think the main reason people watch the Fast and Furious movies is the same reason people came out to watch those
staged train wrecks back in the late 19th and early 20th century. They just want to see carnage, and the producers keep promising more of it in each film. Every film has pretty much the same plot (Some villain is trying to get a hold of some sort of technobabble gobbledygook infinity stone thingy that will let them take over the world, and it's up to our A-Team of B-Listers to stop them) but the stakes keep getting higher and higher, the laws of physics were thrown out the window, off a cliff, shot up by a Predator drone and whatever was left was blown up with a bad one-liner and about half a ton of C4 five movies ago, and the producers have to keep coming up with more and more ridiculous and implausible action setpieces in each film to keep the butts in the seats. As I've said before about this series, they're pretty much superhero movies where the super power is a neverending supply of cars and CG artists.
So basically, it's the cinematic equivalent of a CW series, only with $250 million budgets for each episode. Better than Fate of the Furious, mostly by merit of featuring a lot less of Charlize Theron. As usual, just turn off your brain and don't think too hard about any of this, lest you end up giving it a
trillion sins just to keep sane. A few more comments in spoilers, but it's not like you couldn't see everything that happens in this film from a mile away anyway.
Apparently if you are on the good guy side it's impossible to actually die in these movies, judging from the return of Letty in the sixth film and Han in this one. All they need to do now is find some ex machina for Gisele to have survived the ending of the sixth film and that's everyone in the "family" still alive. And if you had the ninth film in the "when would they end up in space?" pool come claim your prize. I'm mostly surprised it took that long.
And once again, Helen Mirren's appearance as Queenie is one of the best parts of the movie, they need to just give her character her own movie at this point. Since the main series is supposed to end after the next one, I'm guessing the producers are scrambling furiously (and fastly) for spinoffs to keep the cash rolling in.