'F8' has a Diesel problem

The “Fast & Furious” franchise could probably go on forever. The eighth film, “The Fate of the Furious” set worldwide box office records last week, scoring more than a half a billion dollars in its opening weekend.

Now if someone could pay Vin Diesel some money to just go away…

Don’t get me wrong — Diesel has played a major role in front of and behind the camera in making the series such a massive success. But now he’s the wrench that’s monkeying the entire franchise away from what made entries like “Fast Five” and “Furious Seven” so over-the-top amazing.

Let’s get this out of the way — You can’t assess any “Fast & Furious” movie on a normal scale of quality. Sure, many moviegoers take the franchise seriously, even soaking in all the nonsense melodramatic “family” talk that serves as the thematic anchor to every installment. No offense to those people, but I prefer the tone and ridiculousness of the later installments, and it’s no coincidence my love of the series began when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson started stealing the spotlight away from Diesel.

“The Fate of the Furious” thankfully provides more Rock than the prior installment (Johnson’s busy schedule kept him from playing a larger role in “Furious Seven”). His best scenes in “F8” involve interactions with “Furious Seven” villain Deckard Shaw, played by Jason Statham. The two action stars trade barbs and beat hundreds of puny bad guys to a pulp. They are meant for each other, even though it makes no logical sense for them to be anything but mortal enemies.

Unfortunately, Johnson and Statham occupy an entirely different movie than Diesel, who betrays his “family” on a heist and is blackmailed into working with a cyberterrorist named Cypher (I know), played by Charlize Theron. In that movie, Diesel’s Dom sulks on an airplane while Theron reads icy, generic dialogue. Diesel, already of limited acting talent, just can’t sell his character’s supposed anguish. Theron, meanwhile, is given almost nothing beyond generic hacker speak and rigid threats.

Diesel tends to sleep through scenes outside of cars, but the actor’s growing vanity has begun to cloud the overall appeal of the franchise. That multi-cultural “family” used to be full of people who cared about each other, and they were characters audiences liked to see interact with each other. The current lineup, absent Diesel, is too far removed from the all-star lineup of “Fast Five.”

Paul Walker, the other mainstay of the series who tragically died mid-production on “Furious Seven,” was never the greatest actor, but his confidence and warmth onscreen provided a healthy counterbalance to Diesel’s mumbling meat-headedness. Walker is considerably missed in “F8,” and the film’s attempt to fill his gap on the team (in the form of worthless human Scott Eastwood) is another drag on what is already an overlong copy of the franchise’s better installments.

Plot has also eliminated fan favorites like Han and Gisele, and the edges around characters played by Tyrese, Ludacris and even Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody continue to dull with each new appearance.

Director F. Gary Gray (“Straight Outta Compton”) brings a middle-of-the road aesthetic to the “F8” action scenes. A New York City set “autopilot pile-up” sequence is the easy highlight, as is the epic prison break involving The Rock and Statham. Everything else, though, seems overly edited and too reliant on CGI, and the film’s snowy climactic siege chugs along without much agency.

Diesel’s apparent addiction to the superficial concept of “family” is proving to be more illogical than the films’ disregard for physics. The tip of the scale in “F8” involves Statham’s Shaw, a character who murdered a beloved team member in a previous film but is swiftly welcomed into the Fast family after just a few offhand remarks about his admirable military service. He killed the franchise’s awesome Asian guy, and one movie later the guy’s laughing and sipping beers with a crew. Does nobody remember how many times he tried to kill them?

To be clear: Statham is still awesome in “F8,” but the movie never attempts the narrative work that’s required to make his character structurally imperative. Story wise, nothing really matters in “F8” except Diesel and his convoluted rogue storyline.

“F8” also squanders the opportunity to ratchet up the adversarial tension between Diesel and Johnson. The feuding stars (fighting because Diesel is allegedly a lazy diva on set) don’t share a single frame in the film, and the scenes in which they are supposedly together were obviously filmed with the two stars separated. Considering how their characters are on opposite sides in “F8,” it might have been nice to see the two hulking mammoths squash their beefs with a good old-fashioned onscreen tussle.

The rift between Johnson and Diesel could ultimately spell doom for the “Furious” franchise. “F8” gives The Rock an out, and there’s already talk of a Rock-Statham spinoff. Losing both actors would be a major blow to a “Furious” world already down a few favorites. Super respected journalism outlet TMZ reported this week that The Rock will be back for “F9,” but nothing is certain until the camera starts rolling.

I’m complaining quite a bit, but this movie still features The Rock and Statham punching people. That’s basically worth the price of admission. The franchise can also right itself in the next movie with a moon base car chase and a villain played by Nicolas Cage.

Furious Ranking: 1. “Fast Five” 2. “Furious Seven” 3. “Furious Six” 4. “The F8 of the Furious” 5. “The Fast and the Furious (original film) 6. “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” 7. “Fast & Furious” (movie four) 8. “2 Fast 2 Furious.”

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at [email protected]