'The Fate of the Furious' Is Box Office Gold

By Darlene Donloe

The gang’s all here!  Just when you thought you had seen it all from this Furious high-octane crew – they show you their best just got even better!

The Fate of the Furious opens nationwide Friday, Apr. 14.

This time around Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are married. Brian (played by the late Paul Walker) and Mia have retired and the rest of the crew has been exonerated. Just when they have all settled in – they get sucked back in.

In this latest installment Charlize Theron joins in the madness as a mysterious woman named Cypher who wants nothing less then world domination. She somehow gets Dom (Vin Diesel) to turn his back on family to join her in a rather sinister plot to obtain the nuclear codes.

And that’s the story.  But what follows is nothing short of mayhem with unbelievable stunts and incredibly loud car chases – for which the franchise is best known.  This time the car-nage is nothing short of Cecil B. Demille kind of biblical!!  One car scene has hundreds of Zombie-like cars being smashed in a mega spectacular pileup.

Vin Diesel and Charlize Theron

Helen Mirren adds more star power to the film playing the mother of Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Scott Eastwood plays the sidekick agent to Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody. But that real star of the film is a baby that is too adorable for words.  That’s all I’m going to say about that. If you want to know more, go see the film.

Here is what you have to know. The Fate of the Furious doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s good, old-fashioned fun. It delivers what its fans expect!  They want to see adrenalin filled, heart-pumping car races, incredible stunts and awesome fight scenes where the stars barely get bruised. 

In Fate you might feel a few bumps along the road. The plot is weak, really weak and over-the-top.  At times the film might even feel like it’s in cruise control, but for the most part, it offers up some full-throttle excitement. Lets face it, we love to see Dom, Hobbs, Letty, Roman, Tej and now Deckard Shaw dispense their own brand of justice by fighting, racing and doing the impossible.

Dwayne Johnson

The Fate of the Furious is a two and half hour thrill ride that puts the pedal to the metal.

The Fate of The Furious, and F. Gary Gray film, stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Kurt Russell, Scott Eastwood and Charlize Theron.

On the DONLOE SCALE: D (don’t bother), O (oh, no), N (needs work), L (likeable), O (oh, yeah) and E (excellent), The Fate of the Furious (Universal) gets an O (oh, yeah).

Running time: 2 hours, 40m; RATED: PG-13 (for prolonged sequences of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language.)