The Fate of the Furious
by Matt Weiner, MaddWolf.com
Maybe it was when it rained cars down on 7th Avenue in New York. Maybe it was the shootout on a plane with a baby. Or maybe—just maybe—it was when the gang attacked a nuclear submarine with sports cars gliding across a tundra.
However naturally each absurd setup manages to segue within the operatic universe of the franchise, the totality of The Fate of the Furious finally answers the question: how much is too much Fast and the Furious?
In the eighth installment of the series, the gang goes up against one of their own: Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) breaks bad to abet a criminal hacker (Charlize Theron) in mass genocide, and only Dom’s makeshift family of gearheads and misfits can save the day.
(If you need to review how Dom’s crew went from outlaw street racers to extralegal super-spies over the last 15 years, there’s Wikipedia—or there’s the fact that it doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t matter, you’ve either bought into these movies by now or you haven’t.)
To help take down Dom, the gang has to work together with a former foe, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). It’s not an original twist, but the chemistry between Statham and Dwayne Johnson is the most pitch-perfect sendup of action movie homoeroticism since Hot Fuzz—maybe more so, given how truly gifted the two men are at contrasting their action figure physiques with deadpan comedy.
If the film has one glaring weak spot besides a wanton disregard for physics, it’s that Cipher is a too-aptly-named villain. Charlize Theron does her best to inject some genuine fear and malice into the character, but all the effort in the world can’t change a flimsy backstory and the fact that she’s basically just there as the catalyst for Dom vs. Everyone Else.
When the film sticks to that hook, director F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton. The Italian Job) delightfully serves up the best and worst of the franchise. There’s more excess, more teenage boy wish fulfillment, more glib treatment of women, more stereotypical wisecracking—and since more is more, there’s over two hours of it.
Which brings up the question: has the series gone too far? The Fate of the Furious without a doubt sacrifices some of the franchise’s ramshackle charm in order to deliver a smorgasbord of winking action comedy.
But it would be unwise to accuse this franchise of jumping the shark. Really, it would be unwise to mention sharks anywhere near these movies. If the crew ever does come across a shark, they’re just as likely to punch it in the face, strap sticks of dynamite to it, launch it at some larger, angrier target and keep moving without missing a beat. Isn’t it comforting to have a family you can rely on?
Gifted
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
A pensive charmer tries to raise a child prodigy on his own. Gifted offers a premise as rife with possibilities as it is weighed down by likely cliché and melodrama, and it strangely meanders somewhere between the two.
Chris Evans attempts the gruff everyman with some success, playing Uncle Frank, guardian to math genius Mary (Mckenna Grace – very solid). Against the advice of his landlord and Mary’s bestie Roberta (Octavia Spencer), Frank enrolls Mary as a first grader in a local public school.
There Mary wows her good natured teacher (Jenny Slate), and draws the attention of her grandmother (Lindsay Duncan), who’s been MIA since Mary’s mother – another family genius – died when the girl was just a babe.
What’s the best way to care for a gifted child? This is the conundrum at the heart of the film. In rooting out the answer, writer Tom Flynn wisely keeps Mary at the center of the story. She’s an actual character, not a prop for evangelizing one course of action over another.
Luckily, Grace is up to the task, and her chemistry with Evans feels genuine enough to make you invest in their story.
Perhaps more important is Duncan, a formidable talent who elevates a tough role. She, too, shares a warm chemistry with Evans, and it’s that kind of unexpected character layering that helps Gifted transcend its overcooked family dramedy leanings.
On occasion, Gifted is Little Man Tate without the pathos. At other times, it’s Good Will Hunting for first graders.
Strong performances help the film navigate sentimental trappings, but Flynn’s script veers off in too many underdeveloped and downright needless directions, and director Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer) can’t find a tone.
Gifted is warm without being too sweet. Though it knows the answer to the question it’s asking, the film resists oversimplification and never stoops to pitting one-dimensional characters against each other in service of a sermon.
Though the final decision about what’s best for Mary is really never in doubt, in getting to that revelation, the film acknowledges nuance in the choice.
That’s not to say Gifted avoids cliché altogether, or that it embraces understatement. It does not – on either count. But it does present an intriguing dilemma, populates its story with thoughtful, almost realistic characters, and refuses to condescend to its audience or its characters.
Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Just in the last few months, the smash movie Hidden Figures – plus the death of American hero John Glenn – brought renewed attention to the birth of the U.S. space program. Director David Fairhead moves the spotlight a few years ahead with Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo, a fitting salute to both teamwork and an amazing job well done.
And don’t forget those splashdown parties. “We drank a lot of beer.”
After JFK’s “moon promise” of 1961, Project Apollo took the space race baton from Mercury, working overtime to stay on the President’s schedule and get a man to the moon and back before the end of the decade.
Fairhead, in his feature documentary debut, makes the most of some stellar archival footage, often cutting from present-day interviews with mission controllers to decades-old looks at their younger selves moving through an ever-present cigarette haze to get astronauts to the moon.
I’m telling’ ya, these guys could smoke.
And they could work. Despite the eventual gratification of success, the strain on family life became so great that at least one crew member now admits that if given the choice to do it all again, “I wouldn’t.”
As enthralling as the historical footage may be, it’s an equal treat to hear the behind-the-scenes story from the men themselves, and Fairhead lets us glimpse the unique personalities that made up an incredible team. We see men committed to the Apollo mantra of “tough and competent,” and we see hard-nosed flight directors who knew when to step back and let people do their jobs.
In its entirety, the Apollo mission saw tragedy, triumph, and lives in the balance, persevering through situations that were “complicated as hell back then.” Mission Control can’t help but get a bit wonky with the space geekiness, but by the time one crew member gets choked up at the pride and amazement his memories still bring, it’s pretty hard to blame him.