after nine films, the gigantic steroidal humungousness of the Fast and Furious

franchise has finally rolled over me like a tank. This deafening fantasia of internal
and external combustion delivers outrageous action spectacle magnificently
divorced from the rules of narrative or gravity. There is one shot of a car driving
up the far side of a rope bridge that has been cut and whose loose rope-fronds are
collapsing behind the car into the abyss. I think we can include Isaac Newton
among the people who are getting their asses kicked here

The series had appeared to reach a kind of mature endpoint a few films back, with one
solemnly called The Fate of the Furious. But then it just powered on through with more
films and more revving silliness, featuring Vin Diesel (that surname surely inscribing his
career fate) as the gang leader and international super-agent Dominic Toretto driving
very fast, speaking very slow in a deep rumbly voice, and occasionally manhugging his
compadres.

And FF9 gives us some great comedy from Tyrese Gibson, who really comes into his own
as a funny performer here, playing Roman, one of Dominic’s crew who has a kind of
saucer-eyed existential crisis as he realises that he, and everyone else in the film, has
taken part in a large number of unfeasibly dangerous missions without ever getting
injured, and he begins to think that they must all be ... what? Superheroes? Gods?
Actors in a movie? Roman gets an uproariously surreal scene with Tej (Chris “Ludacris”
Bridges), as they somehow get blasted off into space in their car to destroy a satellite.

The deal now is that fatherhood has supposedly given Dominic a zen indifference to his
previous life, and he is out of the game. Doing what? Being an Uber driver? No, he is
apparently living on a farm with his partner Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and their
adorable little child. This, incidentally, was the point of maturity supposedly reached in
FF6 by Dominic’s pal Brian O’Conner – played by the late Paul Walker – when he
became a dad. It was nonsense then and it’s nonsense now. The team show up at the
farm with news of a new crisis and Dominic and Letty join them with hardly a second
thought, leaving their child with ... well, the whole babysitting/childcare thing is dealt
with very cursorily indeed

Dominic turns out to have a brother, Jacob, played with straight-backed and purse-
lipped venom by John Cena, who is engaged in a plan to steal a MacGuffiny data module
connected with the shadowy kingpin Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell), because Jacob has
always been jealous of his tough elder bro. We see a racetrack flashback, giving us the
brothers’ traumatised backstory, and the two boys are actually played by different actors
(Vinnie Bennett and Finn Cole). No digital youthification here.

Jacob is in cahoots with creepy German plutocrat Otto (Thue Ersted Rasmussen) to take
over the world, and to that end has captured Cipher (Charlize Theron) and imprisoned
her, like Loki or Hannibal Lecter, in a Perspex box (although she is surely allowed out
for bathroom breaks). So Dom’s gang must get back together to take on this
dysfunctional situation, in cities including London and Edinburgh (007 having made
these locations acceptable), and also Tbilisi and Tokyo. Helen Mirren has a cameo as
naughty-but-nice cockney criminal Queenie. Some old cast favourites are revived out of
the blue (hang on for the closing credits sting), with some tongue-in-cheek dialogue
about how surprising it is that some of them appear to have come back from the dead.

It’s all very macho and defiant and silly – especially as everyone has now seen the viral
video of John Cena, speaking in impressive Mandarin Chinese, apologetically
kowtowing for calling Taiwan a country while on the FF9 promotional tour. Yet FF9 is a
cheerfully refreshing change from the locked down world of the slow and the placid.
Fast & Furious 9 is released on 24 June in cinemas.

“The theme that we've been playing with up until this point has been the family
that you create with people from all walks of life, the family that is not blood.”
He adds, “What makes the story of Fast 9 so fascinating is how that altruistic
concept could neglect the family defined by blood.

Dominic Toretto
Vin Diesel, Vinnie Bennett, Vin Diesel

Han Lue
Sung Kang

Jakob Toretto
John Cena, Finn Cole
Sean Boswell
Lucas Black

Letty Ortiz
Michelle Rodriguez, Azia Dinea Hale

Deckard Shaw
Jason Statham

Cipher
Charlize Theron

Mr. Nobody
Kurt Russell
Little Brian
Immanuel Holtane

Leysa
Cardi B

Gisele Yashar
Gal Gadot

Mia Toretto
Jordana Brewster, Siena Agudong

Kenny Linder
Jim Parrack
Tej Parker
Ludacris

Ramsey
Nathalie Emmanuel

Roman Pearce
Tyrese Gibson, Tyrese Gibson

Queenie
Helen Mirren

Jack Toretto
JD Pardo

Otto
Thue Ersted Rasmussen

Lieutenant Sue
Martyn Ford

Twinkie
Bow Wow

Rico Santos
Ozuna

Stasiak
Shea Whigham

Earl Hu
James Tobin
Racer Chick
Sophia Tatum

Edinburgh Tourist
Melanie Beiler

Interpol
Miranda Chambers

Race Car Model

Sophia Bui
Elite Guard
Kenny-Lee Mbanefo

Mechanic
Humberto Martinez

Vince
Karson Kern

Flag Girl
Demitra Sealy
Street Race Party Kid
Brian Torres, Jae Kim

Lookout
Bad Bunny

Dancer
Jean Donnay

Technician
Albert Giannitelli
Street Race Kid
Lorin Alond Ly

Russian
Miraj Grbić

Tekkie
Aaron Olatunjie

Cash
Mark Krenik
Drunk Girl #1
Joy A. Kennelly

Young Elle
Juju Zhang

Race Model
Dzenita Bijavica

Ferocious Professional
Francis Ngannou
Street Race Girl
Michelle Marie Jacquot

Guest
Patrick Doran

Pat VP Racing Pit Crew

Anthony A. Gonzalez

Elite Guard 1
Rob Horrocks
Vanessa
Ella Walker

Elle
Anna Sawai

Otto's Entourage
Méghane De Croock