There was a time when it wasn't even clear if Fast and Furious veteran Michelle Rodriguez would even be returning for the ninth installment in the series of progressively more insane car stunts. Rodriguez had been very vocal about her feeling that herself, and the other actresses in the franchise, had received the short end of the stick when it came to the films and that the female characters weren't being given the proper attention. But with Rodriguez back for the new movie, coming out next month, it would seem that her concerns have been addressed, and now a new image gives us a glimpse of Rodriguez's character getting a badass moment to shine involving a motorcycle stunt.
Michelle Rodriguez's Letty gets the spotlight all to herself in a new shot from Fandango that shows her flying through the air on a motorcycle. And it's a unique shot not only because it allows Letty to be the focus, but motorcycle sequences in Fast and Furious movies, while certainly not non-existent, are a bit more rare than you might think. The focus of the series really is on four wheeled vehicles most of the time.
Unfortunately for Letty, while this shot looks pretty amazing, we already have an idea from the trailers how it turns out, and things are about to get pretty rough for her. This scene shows Letty and Dom, and perhaps others, racing through an off-road area, with explosions going off around them as they're being chased. A moment after the shot above, an armored vehicle clips the back wheel of the motorcycle and Letty goes flying. Luckily, she roles onto the hood of Dom's car, which I guess hurts less than the ground?
Still, the fact that Michelle Rodriguez's character gets to fly around on a motorcycle and get taken down by some bad guys means that she gets to do some fun stunts too. Rodriguez had been critical of the lack of focus on the female characters in the Fast & Furious franchise following The Fate of the Furious, to the point where she would not commit to making more movies if that did not change. However, a female writer was brought on board, something the actress specifically requested, and that apparently helped the script work out to her satisfaction.
And it isn't simply letting the women be a bigger part of the action that's important here. F9 will also see Michelle Rodriguez's Letty and Jordana Brewster's Mia share the screen and have an actual conversation with each other, something that hasn't actually happened in the franchise to date.
So far the action if F9 looks amazing and it also looks like all the men and women will get their share of it. We'll get to see it all when F9 opens in theaters after a delay of more than year, on June 25.
