After the pandemic 86'd its original release date, fans have had to wait a whole calendar
year for "F9" to make it to the big screen. But now the ninth "Fast and Furious" film is here,
and its near-apocalyptic climax must be unpacked.
Most of the film's plot machinations center around Jakob's quest for power,
stemming from his deep insecurity at having to live for so long in his big brother's shadow.
But, with this being a "Fast and Furious" film, you may not be surprised that before
the credits begin to roll, this chapter's central villain undergoes a change of heart
so broadly telegraphed it may as well have been visible from space.
Jakob's plan, and that of his financier Otto, is to gather the three pieces of a
top-secret digital weapon called Aries. It's a two-piece device that requires a key to
activate and a satellite uplink to hijack anything in the world that runs on code.
Jakob and Otto kidnap Cipher, the twisted hacker from "The Fate of the Furious", as Mr. Nobody is
transporting her in the hopes of using Cipher's expertise to locate the missing half of Aries.
The key, it turns out, is a young woman named Elle, whose deceased parents designed Aries.
She's been in hiding, under the care of Han, whose apparent tragic death at the end of "The Fast and
the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is revealed to be one of Mr. Nobody's useful spy-craft ruses.
Through a series of pyrotechnics, car chases, and family reunions, Jakob's plan succeeds in
amassing the core parts of Aries — but not before he drops a devastating bombshell on his brother.
Dom disowned Jakob years ago, thinking his baby brother was responsible for the death of their
father Jack. But Jakob reveals that Jack enlisted his help in rigging his car the day of the race
because he was planning to throw it. The Toretto family was in debt, but Jack couldn't bear the
thought of his favorite son seeing him betray their values. Jakob never intended to kill their
father, and has, even in Jack's death, been protecting his big brother from this truth.
With those facts out in the open, Dom is more open to reconciling with Jakob,
which is very convenient for when Otto betrays the younger Toretto,
siding with Cipher and attempting to take Jakob off the board. In the heat of the film's elaborate
climax, Jakob, whose sister Mia has helped him escape, returns to the fray to help his brother's
new family foil the world-shattering caper he himself initially conceived.
Stopping Otto's implementation of Aries on the ground, with the Toretto family fully reunited,
is just one half of the strategy. While Dom, Jakob, Mia and the others try to bring down the
armored truck housing Aries and stop it from uploading its code to a satellite in orbit,
Tej and Roman have to thwart things on the other side of the transfer — in outer orbit.
"Space. The final frontier."
The idea that the gang would end up traveling in space gets seeded early in two key ways.
Firstly, Roman's arc throughout "F9" is vaguely meta-textual, as he becomes obsessed with how
many harrowing experiences the cast collectively survives, and how rarely they wind up even lightly
scarred. He begins to believe that maybe, just maybe, they all might be in some way invincible.
At the same time, Tej and Roman are sent to Germany to acquire wheels and gear for the
mission, and there, they cross paths with a trio of "Tokyo Drift" stars: Sean, Twinkie,
and Earl. The trio now develop cars that are, wouldn't you guess, strapped with massive rockets.
So, when it comes time to try to disable a satellite that Ramsey can't hack from the ground,
Roman and Tej have to suit up in diving gear and duct tape and subsequently blast off into space.
But their original plan of frying the satellite with an EMP fails. Their only
remaining option is to destroy the satellite with brute force,
which would require them to use the last of their rocket fuel to propel their modded
car-ship through the craft ... which would also strand them in space with no way home.
This is where Roman's invincibility obsession comes into play, as he makes his peace
with the idea that either they will somehow miraculously survive this ridiculous situation,
or this will be their last stand. What better way to go out, he posits, than to die in space?
Roman's thesis is essentially proven correct when their Hail Mary play
saves the day and a foreign space crew finds them and helps them back to Earth.
With the bad guys beaten and the Toretto family wounds beginning to heal, things
can return to normal — or as normal as Dom's gang can ever truly have.
Throughout "F9," Mia and Letty both struggle with accepting time away from the fast-paced
lifestyle of their previous movies. They're both mothers now. Two women who have otherwise
never had solo dialogue together in all these films get time to bond on screen
in "F9," and both find that it's okay to no longer throw themselves into the fray,
but agree that they can't hide away from adventure when it comes to their doorstep.
When the whole gang gets together for the obligatory Corona-sponsored cookout at the
old Toretto home, now being rebuilt after the last film's destruction,
the crew is back home in LA and no longer hiding abroad. They even leave a seat at the
table for Brian O'Conner, whose car speeds up the driveway just as the credits roll.
After this, there will be a "Fast 10." Two parts of it, in fact,
as Deadline reports. As eventful as "F9" is, the film's conclusion
leaves a few tasty open threads to be untangled in that double-fisted finale.
"Fast and Furious. This isn't a movie, it's tradition."
For the second film in a row, Cipher gets away scot-free. While plenty of
other antagonists in the "Fast" franchise have received redemption arcs and second chances,
it's unlikely that the woman who killed the mother of Dom's child is going to get off so easily.
As for Han, he's alive and back in the fold, but as a mid-credits teaser reminds us,
he still has unfinished business with Deckard Shaw, the man thought to be responsible for his
faked death. And speaking of redemption arcs, Jakob may have driven off in a 10-second car,
a last-minute gift from his big brother Dom, but it's unlikely to be the last we ever see of him.
Fans will simply have to wait and see what happens next. With any luck,
the 10th franchise installment will arrive fast ... and furious.
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