The Fast and the Furious cast took over both Times Square and the Sunday Night Football broadcast on NBC yesterday to debut the first trailer for the eighth film in the franchise, The Fate of the Furious. You think they’d save a trailer this kick-ass for the Super Bowl, but for fans of the franchise, Christmas comes early.
This being a Fast and Furious movie, we have exotic locales (Iceland! Cuba!), fast cars, and the women who wave flags at them, even though this series totally stopped being about street racing like four movies ago. The biggest surprise? New bad guy Charlize Theron’s haircut. The second biggest? The heel turn of Vin Diesel’s character, Dom Torreto, and his utterly shocking betrayal of his “family” by doing Theron’s dirty work and making out with her.
Now the gang has to stop Dom, led this time by former agent Hobbs (The Rock), and assisted by CIA agent Kurt Russell and previous bad guy Jason Statham (who’s found himself a much better franchise than The Expendables to grace his presence with). Cars get smashed with wrecking balls, tanks are driven by Ludacris, and a Soviet submarine breaks through the ice while our heroes speed across an arctic tundra.
What more can you ask for?
Seriously though, it’s nice to see that Diesel and company have found a hook for their new movies in the wake of Paul Walker’s passing, and the new focus on The Rock’s character makes a lot of sense in that context. New director F. Gary Grey, who previously directed Marky Mark in 2003’s The Italian Job, is fresh off the overwhelmingly critically and commercially successful Straight Outta Compton, and his resume suggests that he can manage an ensemble cast while delivering some amazing car chase action.
Stupid title aside, we can’t wait to ride with the gang again. The Fate of the Furious arrives in theaters on April 14. Watch the trailer below; full screen recommended.