Between spinoffs and Covid-related delays, it’s been four years since the preceding film in what we’re apparently now meant to call “The Fast Saga”. As the series’ storyline has become increasingly serialised, I’m sure I can’t be alone in wishing they’d begin with some kind of “previously on”. That might sound a bit much for a series whose rep is, not undeservedly, “dumb action with cars”; but while that action was revving up, I was left digging around in my memory for where we’d left these characters and why some things were the way they were.

But, let’s be honest, it doesn’t matter all that much, because before long they were racing around (literally) after one Macguffin or another, plus all the requisite shooting stuff and blowing stuff up and performing physics-defying CGI-aided stunts that have become The Fast Saga’s hallmarks. If that makes it sound a bit tired — just “more of the same” — well, remember, we’ve reached film #9. Now, in fairness, if there’s any franchise that bucks its numbering system, it’s The Fast Saga: it tried on different lead characters and various underlying formulae throughout its first four movies, only settling on one that sang in the fifth film. Nonetheless, that means we’re now on the fifth instalment that’s driven by said formula — sixth, if you count the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff, which we should — and it’s beginning to wear thin.

Since landing on that magic formula, the series has walked a couple of tightropes: with its action, being outrageous and ridiculous but still exciting and fun; and with its mythology, being unnecessarily complicated but still followable. F9 is where, for me, it finally stumbles, and perhaps even falls off. Who can still remember the ins and outs of what went on with Han and when? Not me! And… rocketing a car into space? Seriously? Well, Top Gear almost did it for real once, so maybe it’s not entirely implausible. But that’s far from the only so-ridiculous-it’s-ridiculous stunt in the film. Fast’s stunts have never carried the same thrill as, say, Tom Cruise’s in the Mission: Impossibles because they’re unquestionably not being done for real. We’re not impressed by what they managed to physically pull off, more amused by what they dreamt up and rendered in a computer. Most of them are implausible. But here, it reaches the tipping point where I went from laughing along with it to just finding it silly.

What changed? Well, missing from the cast are Jason Statham and The Rock, perhaps the only two actors in the franchise who knew precisely where to pitch their performances to reassure us the filmmakers knew it was all ludicrous but it was ok. But they were only supporting players — does removing them from the equation answer every misstep? Surely not. Perhaps the director? But that’s Justin Lin, the man who saved the franchise in the aforementioned fifth film, continuing the style into the sixth; so he’s only sat out #7 and #8. But perhaps his taste or touch for the material has gone — he did recently abandon production of the series’ forthcoming two-part finale, after all.

Whatever the root cause, I found F9 lacked the fun of the last four films (five, counting the spinoff). Looking at it another way, five entertaining movies is a good run — they were overdue another dud. As that, it’s certainly not the weakest film the series has to offer.