F9 is the latest installment in the long-running franchise of The Fast and the Furious racing films. Happily retired from racing and all criminal activity, Dom has settled down to become a family man with Letty and their son Roman. Unfortunately, the airplane transporting their former enemy Cipher has been hijacked and she's gone missing, which means that Dom and his entire gang of friends who became family are suddenly in grave danger. To add fuel to the fire, it appears that Dom's long-lost blood brother Jakob has returned to make life hard for the gang.
Dominic "Dom" Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) have settled down into a unique, off-grid lifestyle where they're devoted to each other and their son Roman (Tyrese Gibson). Their new life is all about family, and saying goodbye to their former criminal car-racing careers. But then their chosen family of friends Tej (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) show up, informing them that their lives are all in jeopardy.
Criminal mastermind Cipher (Charlize Theron) has been broken out of captivity during her plane ride to prison. Dom and the gang's former nemesis poses a huge threat to all of them, so they meet up in Montequinto to see what clues they can find from the airplane wreckage.
Unfortunately, a bad situation becomes worse when they discover the evil Otto (Thue Erstad Rasmussen); he hired Dom's brother Jakob Toretto (John Cena) to break Cipher out and have her join their team. He also wants Jakob to kill his brother Dom. Together, their team will be piecing together a gadget that allows Otto to control all the security networks in the world, essentially becoming the leader of every country on the globe. Dom has his work cut out for him to stop his talented, murderous brother Jakob and end the insane quest for world domination.
Directed and co-written by Justin Lin (The Fast and The Furious 3, Star Trek Beyond) the almost comic nature of the stunt scenes totally work, in that he goes for something ridiculously cool with some never-before-seen action sequences. Lin's talent is in mining the franchise for more of the same, but bigger and bolder. Setting aside the fact that introducing a new blood brother for Dom is hokey, he pits the two beasts against each other with panache, scowls and all.
There are no major flaws with F9: The Fast Saga, if it's only taken as a fun way to marvel at some crazy stunts that would never be possible in real life. But knowing that it's not real is what makes it possible to enjoy the high-flying, car-and-motorcycle smashing, body-bruising action. Knowing that a new character can show up at any moment because they either aren't completely dead, or that they've existed all along and we just didn't know it, only adds to the Looney Tunes-meets-James Bond storyline.
Suspension of disbelief is attacked from every angle as physics no longer applies to cars or people in F9. However, it's a great deal of fun to watch big dudes and bad girls racing each other to the bitter end, only to bash each other mercilessly as they destroy all the set pieces around them. The pulse-thumping action doesn't let up, even when it logically should, and it results in a very long, car-chasing, fist-fighting romp.