I’m a big Fast & Furious fan, but I haven’t written about any of those movies here. Let’s change that.

What’s It About? When street-racing mercenary Dominic Toretto abandons his family to join a high-tech crime syndicate, it’s up to his old crew to track him down and find out why.

STRAIGHT UP: Fun, but far from the franchise’s best. 3/5

What I Liked

Charlize Theron as Cipher – Each F&F film has enjoyed a higher class of villain than the one before it, and that trend continues here. Cipher has a creepy, menacing screen presence, and presents Dom with a problem he can’t immediately solve by punching or outracing it – all good things, as far as I’m concerned.

The People’s Champion – The Rock stole the show in Furious 7, but his limited screentime left me wanting more. F8 sees his character, Hobbs, become the de facto leader of the crew in Dom’s absence, and that gives him a lot more chances to brawl with tons of bad guys, drive bad-ass armored trucks, and generally be the most interesting and charismatic guy on the screen.

Showdown in the Arctic – The F&F franchise has produced some of the most spectacular action set pieces of the past few years, and that legacy continues in F8‘s climactic scene. Featuring the craziest vehicles yet seen in the series, Hobbs manhandling live torpedoes, Roman playing Captain America with a Lambo door, and a perfectly-timed face turn, it absolutely lives up to the hype.

Series traditions – A lot of what makes F8 worth recommending are things that many of the previous F&F films also did well – the admirably diverse cast, characters that have acquired depth through sheer persistence, delightfully cheesy humor, and a sense of globe-trotting adventure. It’s too bad that someone decided to try and make some changes to the formula this time…

What I Disliked

Vin Diesel, tragic lead – Whoever thought Vin Diesel could express inner torment well enough to carry multiple dramatic scenes made a terrible mistake.

Schizophrenic tone – Early in F8, there’s a gruesome scene where a woman is shot to death in front of her infant son while Dom looks on. Later, near the end, we’re treated to a ridiculous sequence with Deckard (Jason Statham) doing his best Kindergarten Cop routine with the same baby in tow. This movie goes from campy to gritty and back again faster than Dom’s Charger runs the quarter mile.

Wasted cameos – Kurt Russell and Helen Mirren may as well not even be in this movie, for all they get to do in it. Contrast this with Furious 7, which was a master class in getting the most out of big-name performers in drop-in roles.

Justice for Han – Han (Sung Kang) was a major character in the 5th and 6th F&F movies. His death at the hands of Deckard sets off the entire plot of Furious 7, as Dom and his crew go to the ends of the Earth to bring Deckard to justice. F8 would prefer that the audience forget all that as part of the franchise’s ongoing attempts to erase everything associated with Tokyo Drift from the canon. A few lines of retconned backstory is enough to hastily recast Deckard as a hero; by the end of the movie, he’s “one of the guys,” and an important piece of what made the recent F&F films so good is lost. I’m not overreacting – consistent, believable character dynamics are part of what elevated F&F above other blockbuster franchises, and undoubtedly contributed to it surviving for eight full installments when most of its contemporaries haven’t made it to three. Erasing Han violates this core element and reflects poorly on the screenplay writers. I can’t just ignore that.

CLOSING THOUGHT: In hindsight, Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious illustrate the respective differences between a movie that is merely perceived as “dumb” and one that actually is kind of dumb. F8 delivers enough spectacle and keeps enough of what worked in the previous films to stand a cut above most blockbusters, but the sense of purpose and attention to certain details that made other entries in the series such pleasant surprises are missing here. In that context, F8 is a bit of a disappointment.