CinemaCon got a special look at the newest entry of in the Fast & Furious franchise and it sounds like they have another winner on their hands. However, according to Vin Diesel, The Fate of the Furious isn't simply a good movie, it's a great one. Actually, it's better than great, it's actually the best movie ever. It seems that Diesel had some major motivation for making it that, way, he didn't want to disappoint Paul Walker. In comments during CinemaCon Diesel said...
I always feel like he's looking down on us and we don't want to let him down. [It's] the best movie you have ever seen.
When Paul Walker died during the production of Furious 7 it was a major blow to the franchise the actor had helped build. It's clear from Vin Diesel's comments at CinemaCon (via The Seattle Times) that Walker was still a major influence on The Fate of the Furious even though he wasn't there physically. He, and one assumes the rest of the cast, wanted to make the new film great as a tribute to him. Apparently, Diesel feels that they succeeded in their task if he's calling it the best movie he's ever seen.
While one could easily call that a bit of hyperbole, based on the early reaction to the critics who saw The Fate of the Furious at CinemaCon it might actually be that good. We're not saying it's going to win Best Picture or anything, but it sounds like the film just brings more and more of the action that we all love and does it in a spectacular way. It could very well be the best movie in a franchise that has been bringing the action in a bigger and better fashion with every successive iteration. As a visual spectacle, we seem to be in for a fairly impressive experience.
If The Fate of the Furious is the best entry in the franchise, that means it could also become the most successful. Since Furious 7 became one of the highest-grossing movies ever, the bar is set pretty high at the box office. However, with Fate having already secured a Chinese release date that will see the movie released at the same time that it opens in North America, we could be about to see one of the largest opening weekends in the history of film.
The rest of us still have a couple weeks before we'll have a chance to learn if The Fate of the Furious is, in fact, the utterly perfect, life-changing movie that Vin Diesel claims it will be. We're expecting it to be a lot of fun at the very least. F8 opens April 14.
