All in the Family

There are several spoilable things in The Fate of the Furious, and most of them have to do with family — “family” being the eight-film series’ touchstone, its go-to word when Vin Diesel needs to intone something meaningfully.

But it is no spoiler to tell you that Diesel’s Dom Toretto wins the first race he’s in, because Dom always wins, eventually. He may barely scrape by, or fling himself into something ass-first, or piece together an absurd plan with the help of his family, but he’ll get there.

A lot of bonkers stuff just has to happen first, and in this case, the emphasis is on “a lot”: a lot of characters need their screen time in Fate, and you feel it, even as you’re grinning like an idiot at the most recent explosion or car chase or The Rock vs. Jason Statham fight.

Scott Eastwood steps in as the team’s pretty white guy, but it’s unclear why he’s there except to give Roman (Tyrese Gibson) a break from being the brunt of everyone’s jokes. Just about every character still alive after the last three movies shows up eventually and we get Charlize Theron as the villainous Cipher, plus the most perfect Helen Mirren cameo on record. (I’m rooting for a spinoff starring her and hers.)

The Furious films are a weird joy in a world that needs them. Family is the most important thing, and cars, and doing the right thing in the least likely way. Furious 6 had its sleek London car chase and its impossibly long runway; Furious 7 dropped cars out of planes and put Michelle Rodriguez, one of the series’ unsung VIPs, in a dressed-up fight with Ronda Rousey.

Reality is a bubble the movies long since popped, and that’s part of the fun: The most incredible hacking takes place with just a spot of typing, cars are always fast enough, and the Rock eats rubber bullets for breakfast and laughs about it. It’s an ongoing madcap, violent delight, but Fate’s action sequences are often so stuffed with characters that it feels like we’re missing the cool parts while hopping from person to person.

Fate’s best fight involves one man, encumbered by a very fragile package, versus a whole plane of baddies. As a cleverly choreographed display of excellent comic timing, it’s a spectacle of ferocious grace — but it’s also not about the team, which may be the flaw that keeps this movie from being quite as excellent as the last few.

As plots go, “Dominic Toretto has just gone rogue” should be a great one, but it leaves the rest of the gang with a leadership vacuum — a problem that regular Furious screenwriter Chris Morgan doesn’t account for. The emphasis on family — which has, in this series, always meant chosen family as much as blood relations — gets taken literally in a way that raises a lot of questions about where the story goes from here: The Fast and the Furious: The Next Generation? (Regal Valley River, Cinemark 17)

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

That’s because of you!

Not just because of financial support (though that matters enormously), but because of the emails, notes, conversations, encouragement and ideas you shared along the way. You reminded us why this paper exists and who it’s for.

Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.

We’ve also continued to deepen the coverage that sets Eugene Weekly apart, including our in-depth reporting on local real estate development through Bricks & Mortar — digging into what’s being built, who’s behind it and how those decisions shape our community.

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None of this happens by accident. It happens because readers step up and say: this matters.

As we head into a new year, please consider supporting Eugene Weekly if you’re able. Every dollar helps keep us digging, questioning, celebrating — and yes, occasionally annoying exactly the right people. We consider that a public service.

Thank you for standing with us!