I watched Fast & Furious 8 without seeing any of the other movies and had a great fucking time

It was when I witnessed Vin Diesel driving a clapped-out old car, backwards and on fire after deliberately blowing up the engine to win a street race, that I whispered to myself, "This is ridiculous."

That was about 10 minutes in, and to my surprise it was the least ridiculous thing in the entire film. The Fate of the Furious, or Fast & Furious 8, or Fast 8, or 8 Fast 8 Furious, is the seven-plus-oneth instalment of the Fast and Furious franchise, which is both impressive and hilarious. People love and can't wait to see these films; Fast 8 just had the strongest worldwide debut ever, which is more than can be said for Beethoven's Treasure Trail, the eighth film in the illustrious but altogether less successful Beethoven franchise. In spite of the franchise's global dominance, I have managed to go through my entire adult existence without seeing a single frame of any Fast and Furious movie. As a fan of all things big, loud and stupid, I felt like I'd missed out, so with an invite to a screening of Fast & Furious 8 in my hand, I went to right this wrong. I had not prepared myself for how big, how loud and how stupid Fast & Furious 8 would be. Nor had I prepared myself for how much goddamn fun I was going to have watching it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uisBaTkQAEs It almost feels redundant to talk about the story or plot of Fast & Furious 8, because both are entirely secondary, maybe even tertiary to what Fast & Furious 8 is all about. No one - and I hate to speak on behalf of people who know this franchise better than me, but come on - is going to see this film to get wrapped up in a compelling drama about friendship and betrayal. They want to see buildings exploding, asses being kicked, punched and generally ill-treated, and flashy cars being driven with little regard for the safety of pedestrians or the Highway Code. Nevertheless, here's a plot synopsis: Vin Diesel is big mates with The Rock, Ludacris and some other less famous people, then Charlize Theron: Future Hacker turns up and convinces Vin Diesel to betray his big mates. Vin Diesel then does Charlize Theron: Future Hacker's bidding, stealing various nuclear appendages and other baddie bits and bobs. The Rock, Ludacris and the remaining big mates team up with Jason Statham and Clint Eastwood's son Scott to bloody well sort Vin Diesel out, reunite the big mates, and cause millions of pounds of extremely entertaining damage in the process. As this is my first exposure to the primary players of the Fast & Furious movies, I have not a clue as to how all these people ended up associating with each other, but I would guess that they met at a Raving Fucking Madmen support group, because not one of them behaves in any kind of rational manner at any point during this film. Happily, they are a seemingly functioning unit and all have complimentary skill sets, including driving really fast, preposterous computer hacking, lovely big muscles, and wanton destruction of private and public property. This is clearly the bread and butter of the Fast & Furious movies and honestly, I could eat a whole loaf of that shit. The action sequences are absolutely, brilliantly absurd: hordes of zombie cars falling out of windows and racing around New York; a remote-controlled nuclear submarine crashing through a Russian ice field; Jason Statham dispatching baddies on a plane while juggling a baby. Yes, yes! That is a thing that really happens, and it's even better than you're imagining. There's not a single whiff of logic or consequence to be smelt anywhere, and it's all the better for it. Bilge like the Transformers movies try to take themselves too seriously and are therefore unwatchable garbage; Fast & Furious 8 is in on its own joke and is therefore an absolute riot. It's a good joke, too; the mega-macho back-and-forthing between apparent nemeses Jason Statham and The Rock is very enjoyable, as are the comic interjections from Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris. Of course you can't help but laugh at the enormous stupidity of what's actually happening, but Fast & Furious 8 is totally cool with that, which in itself is totally cool. Things fall flat a bit when there are no jokes or explosions, however. There are moments that are supposed to be serious and high-tension, but the surrounding events are just too ridiculous to allow these scenes any sense of gravity, and with the best will in the world, watching Vin Diesel act is like watching a baked potato try to have feelings. There's a lot of explaining the plot too, which is odd because even after 10 minutes of constant exposition, it still doesn't make a jot of sense. I couldn't really get a handle on what was going on until the final act, but by then The Rock had jumped out of a speeding van to physically redirect a torpedo, and just like that, nothing in the universe mattered a single bit. At some point in the middle of the movie it occurred to me that these films used to be about illegal street racing, and I'm fascinated to go back and see exactly how we ended up here. Like, yeah, there are fast cars in both, but I'm reasonably confident that the baby juggling is a recent addition to the Fast & Furious oeuvre. I'm also aware that this is the first Fast & Furious movie to be made after the death of Paul Walker, but as I have no context to judge a film without him in, I can't say if he's missed or not. All I will say is that the film sensibly made no mention of him, though there is a nice little tribute tucked away at the end. I enjoyed the balls off this film. The general critical consensus has been that it's one of the weaker entries in the franchise, which is kind of amazing to me; if this is Fast & Furious treading water, the other films must be fucking bananas. Whether I find the time to go back and watch all seven of the remaining films, I don't know, but I'll sure as shit go and see Fast & Furious 9.