Tag: Chris Bridges

Cinema Dispatch: Fast X

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Fast X and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Louis Leterrier

Fast & Furious as a franchise has been quite the ride with one of the more bizarre gear shifts that any franchise has gone through. Sure, the series was always ridiculous, but the change in scope from simple street racers to international super spies has given the series a lot of room to experiment and hone in on its core appeals. For all the jokes we make about Vin Diesel’s bottomless well of familial aphorisms, the cast is really what keeps it compelling enough for audiences to return year after year. Still, all good things must come to an end and it’s been stated that this is part of a two-part finale for the main series before it gets spun off into side projects like the already-released Hobbs & Shaw and the long-awaited female-led movie. Does this penultimate feature set us on the path to a graceful ending, or will the series crash and burn right before it hits the finish line? Let’s find out!!

Life for Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family has been going smoothly since they saved the world and turned his brother Jakob (John Cena) back to the good side, but after living such an extreme life and crossing so many paths, can he ever truly hope to live peacefully with his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his son Brian (Leo Abelo Perry)? Well not if Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) has anything to say about it! Yes, it looks like the criminal mastermind that Dom and his crew robbed and killed back in Fast 5 had a son and he’s come back after all this time to exact his revenge and starts by taking on Cipher (Charlize Theron) and stealing her tech which allows him to play with Dom and his crew like a cat plays with its food. After orchestrating a disaster in Rome with Dom and his crew in the center of it, they all end up on the Most Wanted list, and Roman, Tej, Ramsey, and Han (Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Sung Kang) are forced to go into hiding while Dom tracks down this new threat to end his reign of terror and clear his family’s name. Can Dom reckon with his past and come out the other side unscathed? What does Dante truly want out of all of this, and is the answer more terrifying than Dom could ever imagine? Will we ever learn the secret to Dom’s barbeque chicken, or does that come with its own convoluted backstory as well?

“It all started thirty years ago today.” “Come on, man. You’re just supposed to say grace.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Fast & Furious 9

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Fast & Furious 9 and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Justin Lin

It looks like movies are back (at least for those who can safely vaccinate, which if you haven’t and are able to then do it please!) and what a better way to kick off the summer season than with another Fast & Furious movie!?  Gotta admit, I was not on the F&F train for over a decade and it wasn’t until Fate of the Furious that I finally gave the franchise a chance.  It’s a mixed bag to be sure, but the latter half of the franchise has been quite impressive as big budget spectacles though and the more professional wrestlers they throw into the mix the more I look forward to seeing them!  So after a year of global misery and despair, is this action blockbuster we need to celebrate our slow but sure recovery, or has the Fast Franchise gassed out right when we needed it the most?  Let’s find out!!

Dominic Toretto and Letty Ortiz (Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez) have been living the quiet life with Dom’s son Bryan out in the country, but this peace is not meant to last as Roman, Tej, and Ramsey (Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, and Nathalie Emmanuel) show up with a distress message from the mysterious Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) and they are forced to come out of retirement to find him and find what he was trying to protect.  Sadly they don’t find the former, but the latter is a piece of some sort of doomsday device that is pretty much the SAME doomsday device these last few movies have had, and it gets taken right from under their noses by a mysterious jacked dude (John Cena) who also drives cars, has a cross necklace, and keeps staring menacingly at Dom.  Turns out that this is none other than Jakob; Dom’s long lost brother!  Not only must Dom and the crew stop Jakob and who he’s working for from getting the other pieces of the Doomsday Device, Dom must confront his past and perhaps even realize his own mistakes before they threaten to throw the world into utter chaos!  Will Dom be able to face his brother and bring an end to his maniacal schemes?  Who else has a stake in this Doomsday Device, and will they prove to be an ally or a hindrance to the Fast & Furious family?  Speaking of family, are we sure Dom and Jakob aren’t actually cousins, or were their parents’ genes an ethnic roulette wheel?

Come on, Cena! Do the U CAN’T SEE ME! You know you want to!!
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Cinema Dispatch: The Fate of the Furious

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

F8OTF0

Fate of the Furious and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by F Gary Gray

I hope all of you out there appreciate what I do for you!  A week ago, I had never even SEEN a Fast and the Furious movie, and yet I managed to binge watch ALL SEVEN OF THEM so that I can properly review this new one as the series now has a continuity more dense than the freaking Terminator, and that’s SUPPOSED to be convoluted!  I HAD TO WATCH TOKYO DRIFT FOR YOU PEOPLE!!  Sigh… alright, well it’s not like I even HATED any of the movies (other than Tokyo Drift) as most of them are at least DECENT if not all that engaging.  For me though, they didn’t pick up until part six when the BUDGET finally started to match the VISION that was always there, because let’s face it; Fast and the Furious was NEVER a serious series.  It was ALWAYS balls to the wall insanity, just at different degrees depending on what they could afford (except for Tokyo Drift which was just garbage).  So with the last two films finally managing to reach the potential this series was always capable of, does that trend continue with this film?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins in Cuba where Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) have settled down since the last movie where their house got blown up, and they’re doing their typical first act shtick of racing cars, talking about family, and forging new friendships!  That is until a super hacker hilariously named CIPHER (Charlize Theron) corners Dom at one point and shows him something that will CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER!!  Cut to a few days later where good ol’ Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) calls him and the rest of the crew up (Tyrese Gibson, Chirs Bridges, and Nathalie Emmanuel) to do another mission.  Everything goes according to plan except… DOM BETRAYS THEM!!  Their mission was to take an EMP from someplace in German (for reasons that I’m sure make sense) but he crashes Hobbs’s car right at the end and takes it for himself; leaving Hobbs to get thrown in jail back in America which JUST SO HAPPENS to be the same jail that Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is locked in as well… and they get cells right across from each other because reasons.  So now it’s up to our favorite crew of street racers along with Frank Petty (Kurt Russel) from the last movie who’s the leader of some sort of spy organization as well as his new protégé of sorts Eric Reisner (Scott Eastwood) to find out what Dom is doing, what CIPHER wants from him, and hopefully how to solve all this without taking him out as well.  Just what is the reason that Dom betrayed the one thing he cares about more than anything which is FAMILY?  Just what is CIPHER planning, and is it bad enough that the crew may have no other choice than to take Dom out?  Will Vin Diesel FINALLY give that Oscar performance he’s been hoping for!?

F8OTF1
“I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!  SLLLLLUUURRRP!”

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