The first trailer for F9 came out over a year ago, before the pandemic, in simpler times. Now the second full trailer is out, ahead of the June 25 release.
Things look quick and very angry. Han is back, notably, and at least one Twitter user says that there are elements in here that might rival the vault heist in Fast Five, a high point of the series. I don’t quite see it.
I want to believe, though, even if the point of these movies isn’t the plot. It’s all the whizzes and bangs and cars.
And also, some plot: Dom has a brother now in the form of John Cena, who is apparently also his enemy. We know this because early on in the trailer Letty says, “Jacob is...Dom’s brother.”
The crew has some kind of magnet weapon this time, capable of pulling and pushing cars and wreaking other forms of havoc. And Charlize Theron has a bowl cut?
F9 is the first Fast & Furious movie to be directed by Justin Lin since Fast & Furious 6. Lin, of course, also gave the series new life with the excellent Fast Five, which is one of the reasons I think F9 might be all right.
One more thing: The divergence between how good a movie is and how good or bad its trailers are has never been bigger. I’ve seen a lot of bad trailers for movies that turned out to be good and a lot of good trailers for movies that turned out to be bad.
I would put this trailer not into the category of good or bad but rather the “squarely mediocre” and “blunt and slightly cheesy” categories. That is probably how F9 will turn out, too, though I’m hoping not. You? Is F9 going to be any good?