(Chris Pizzello / Invision / Associated Press)
Two years ago, Vin Diesel took to the stage in front of thousands of movie theater owners and made a vow: “‘The Fate of the Furious’ will be the best movie you have ever seen.”
The actor set out to make good on that promise Wednesday at CinemaCon, surprising the crowd by debuting the eighth installment in the Universal Pictures franchise.
We’re not sure you’ll agree with Diesel’s assessment about the film’s place in cinematic history, but the movie does deliver on what you’d expect from a “Fast” movie: Fast cars, globetrotting and plenty of “family” mentions.
The movie — which brings the crew to Havana, Berlin, New
York City and the icy tundra in Russia — will have fans questioning where the loyalty of Diesel’s Dominic Toretto truly lies. While on his honeymoon in Cuba with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom is confronted by the franchise’s new villain: Cipher, played by Charlize Theron, who is sporting some, uh, interesting blond dreadlocks.
(Angela Weiss / AFP / Getty Images)
Diesel was particularly amped on Theron’s performance, telling the audience before the screening that his “whole career was leading up to working with this incredibly brilliant talent.” Their scenes together in Cuba were so electric, he said, that “it changed weather,” apparently causing storms, lightning and thunder.
Theron’s character is out to steal some Russian nukes, but she needs Dom’s help to get them. In order to persuade him to turn on his old crew — and his new wife — Theron tells Dom that she’s got something on him. We won’t reveal what — or who — forces Dom to turn to the dark side, but let’s just say family has something to do with it.
Theron isn’t the only newcomer to the franchise. There’s Helen Mirren, playing the British mum of Jason Statham’s baddie; she’s enlisted by Dom to help with his mission. There’s also Scott Eastwood, who serves as a government agent but ends up as the “Fast” gang’s punching bag as he tries to keep them on-task.
As for Dwayne Johnson, who over the summer had a beef with Diesel in the last days of filming “Fate of the Furious,” he has a hilarious scene in the beginning of the movie coaching his daughter’s soccer team. A shadow operative turns up at the game to try to pull Johnson back into the fray, but he’s more focused on coaching the team. If they lose, he says, he’s going to have to take the team to a “TayTay concert” — a.k.a Taylor Swift. It got the biggest laugh of the film.
But Johnson didn’t hear the reaction; after being at CinemaCon Monday and Tuesday for the Sony and Paramount presentations, he was conspicuously absent from the “Furious” panel; Rodriguez wasn’t onstage either.
Most significant, this is the first “Fast” film without Paul Walker, who died in a car accident shortly before production on the seventh movie was complete. As you might expect, though, Walker’s legacy lives on within the franchise — and there’s a nice reference to his character, Brian O’Conner, at the end of the movie.
Diesel got emotional when talking about his late friend’s influence on the film, saying he was constantly “reminded of this angel that was so integral to this concept of brotherhood” while filming.
“The irony is when I thought about going into this eighth chapter, it was Paul Walker who promised eight,” said the actor. “I just play it over and over in my brain, him saying, ‘Eight is guaranteed.’ I always feel like he’s looking down on us, so never want to let him down.”
