Lisa Johnson Mandell’s F9 review wonders if the Toretto family and friends have finally jumped the shark.

At one point in F9, the ninth big screen episode of the Fast and Furious saga, two characters are in such a ludicrous car—satellite chase scene you begin to think, “Okay, after all the impossible chase/race scenes the franchise has conceived, they’ve finally jumped the shark. It is purely and utterly impossible to suspend disbelief long enough to swallow this one.”

But when Roman (Tyrese Gibson) says to Tej (Ludicris) something to the effect of, “No one’s ever going to believe this,” you realize that director Justin Lin’s production is completely self-aware, that they know they’ve gone too far, and they’re totally reveling in it.

You don’t go to see a Fast and Furious film for the performances, the plot line or the proficiency. You go for the muscle (cars), the madness and the mania. F9 contains plenty of all three.

Dedicated fans may not be completely lost from the very beginning, with the seemingly infinite references to previous episodes.  The rest of us are left to flounder helplessly as we try to recall what happened to whom in The Fate of the Furious, which was released in 2017 (the pandemic delayed F9’s release for over a year.) When Gal Gadot pops up for a quick flashback cameo, we confess we had to check our references. She was indeed in Furious 7, clear back in 2015.

So the plot is basically unintelligible to those of us who didn’t re-watch its predecessors yesterday. Briefly, it involves the FF team battling an international plot for world domination, orchestrated by Dom’s (Vin Diesel, who is strong in stature if not performance) long lost younger brother Jakob (John Cena, who is almost equally muscle bound). Woo hoo! Another character is added to the mix for what in our dreams is called F’n 10.

Does anyone else ever wonder how they transport themselves and their wild wheel collection across the globe? Or what happens to the innocent drivers of the countless collateral damage cars? Is bringing characters back from the dead, or packing in brief appearances from the likes of Hellen Mirren and Charlize Theron, supposed to keep us from questioning?

By the end of F9’s two-hour, 25-minute runtime, you feel as if you’ve seen a few too many knock-down drag outs, drag races, and draggy flashbacks. Still it’s all the crazy, pulse-racing action you’ve come to expect from the franchise and more. Just a little too much more.

Rated PG-13

2 Hours 25 Minutes

If this F9 review makes you want to race to the cineplex to see it, find it at a theater near you on Fandango.com.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s F9 review wonders if the Toretto family and friends have finally jumped the shark.