The Fate of the Furious (2019)

The first 10 minutes of “The Fate of the Furious” have everything that you could ever ask for in a “Fast and the Furious” movie, or any other movie for that matter. Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) swaggers through the streets of Havana, tasting the local flavor as a bass-heavy Cuban pop song bangs on the soundtrack. The sun is shining, the cars are classics, and the girls are wearing hot pink thongs that make their butts pop off the screen like they’ve been post-converted into 3D. It’s like someone threw a Pitbull video and forgot to invite him.

Then, as Dom comes across a weirdly well-organized group of local auto fetishists, he finds his younger cousin being antagonized by the baddest guy in town. But there’s an easy solution to this problem. You see, Dom lives by a code, and that code is simple: “All human conflict can be resolved by a rigged street race between two hilariously mismatched vehicles.”

So they race, the Cuban dude in a souped up beauty, and Dom in a rustbucket that hasn’t been touched since the Bay of Pigs — all the better for him to growl that it “doesn’t matter what’s under the hood.” A few pyrotechnics and a shot of NOS later, and a mob of smiling kids is surrounding Dom like he’s brought them all candy. The loser surrenders his keys: “You win my car, and you win my respect.” They’re brothers now. Dom throws an arm around his wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Fidel Castro rolls in his grave, and the title card skids onto the screen.