Still big, still dumb & still kind of fun.

Twenty years. It’s been twenty bloody years – almost to the day – since The Fast and the Furious came screeching into our lives, and from relatively humble beginnings as a serviceable Point Break knock-off, the series has grown to become one of the world’s most profitable franchises.

Morphing into something approaching a superhero/spy movie hybrid, the Fast franchise is barely recognisable from its drag racing origins, and while the evolution has kept the series’ engine running for two decades now, after such a long time in the game, where the hell do you take things from here?

Space, obviously.

Retired and living off the grid with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his son, it looks like Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) has finally found peace. This normality doesn’t last long, however, as the remaining members of Dom’s old crew soon come knocking. With the “family” reunited and gearing up to stop a world-shattering plot led by highly skilled assassin Jakob Toretto (John Cena), Dom must confront the sins of his past if he is to save those he loves most.

It's probably fair to say there’s more than a hint of the absurd to the Fast & Furious franchise. From nuclear submarine races to logic-defying tank leaps to unnecessarily drawn-out runway chases, daftness has been the Fast thing for some time now – and it knows it.

These are movies best approached through a very specific mindset, one that leaves any lingering doubts or nit-picks firmly at the door. By fully embracing the utter lunacy of the Fast films, you put yourself in the best possible position to get something – anything – out of the unfolding insanity.

Fitting this bill like a driving glove, Fast & Furious 9 is complete and utter nonsense from start to finish. Yet, as with every other entry in the franchise, this is some of the most flagrant and outrageously gratifying nonsense cinema has to offer.

Upping the ante on everything that’s come before it, F9 goes all-in on the madness as it tests your disbelief and mental leeway to its limit. There’s undoubtedly much to enjoy in this approach, however, as the franchise pushes itself harder and further towards the very edge of rationality, there’s an unavoidable sense of wheel spinning going on.

As you’d imagine, Fast & Furious 9 is, like every other instalment in the series, big, loud, and incredibly proud of it. Absolutely revelling in the lunacy of it all, the film centres itself around a string of bombastic set pieces so outrageous and daft that you’re constantly caught somewhere between awe and aghast.

From magnet cars to rocket cars and everything in between, the action on display here starts at 11 and goes from there, burning with a constant desire to take everything one step further. The results will frequently leave you with a grin on your face, if for no other reason than in pure disbelief, however, as the action grows in scale and lunacy, so too does the overwhelming flatness.

While there’s an impressive grandiosity and swagger to F9’s action that few blockbusters can touch, the creeping sense of familiarity is impossible to shake. Overblown and overlong, the film’s preposterous plot hits an awful lot of familiar beats, and the lingering sense of déjà vu only works to expose its flaws.

Clocking in at just under two and a half hours, the film’s bloated duration really doesn’t do it any favours, stretching both the action and the excruciating dialogue to breaking point and exposing just how lacklustre it is behind the action. And it’s this very action that’s become both a blessing and a curse for the entire franchise, as the scale and stakes continue to grow, while everything else heads in the opposite direction.

While it’s undeniably impressive that a film series that started with backstreet drag racing and DVD player thievery has evolved into the globetrotting action thriller it is today, the more it edges towards Mission: Impossible territory, the less inspiring it becomes. The family stuff that’s always been the lynchpin of this series certainly remains, however, there’s only so far this can anchor things before it all floats away in a big, overinflated bubble.

To this end, the cast continue to have a ball with the material they’re given, clearly well aware of the sheer silliness of it all and willing to throw themselves into things with gleeful abandon. Of the ensemble, Tyrese Gibson and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges continue to offer solid comic relief and a much-needed dose of self-awareness, while the conveyor belt of guest appearances from past Fast stars like Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron keeps things bubbling along nicely.

Alongside them, Vin Diesel is his usual carboard cut-out self and seemingly in a separate po-faced movie to everyone else, while John Cena does a solid job of stepping into the sizeable void left by Dwayne Johnson. As the central source of the film’s tension and narrative drive, Diesel and Cena are an adequate enough duo opposite one another (despite looking and feeling nothing like brothers), yet there’s no getting away from the glaring lack of energy without Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham around.

With the pair now shunted off into spinoff territory and no longer a presence in the mainline Fast films, it’s left to Diesel and the core “family” members to pick up the slack, however, there’s just not enough there to compensate. While there’s little doubt that this is Vin Diesel’s franchise through and through, the man lacks the fundamental charisma to carry the whole thing and make it work beyond a ragtag collection of action bits.

However, as ever with this series, Fast & Furious 9 will be judged not on its characters, dialogue, or plot, but on the sheer absurdity of its action. Clearly aware of what makes this franchise tick, long-term Fast director Justin Lin offers the kind of action we’ve seen a million times before, yet, despite the familiarity, the film’s sheer hutzpah cannot be denied.

Quite literally aiming for the stars at certain points, the action Fast & Furious 9 brings to the table is absolutely made for the big screen, and while little of it will live long in the memory, it’s exactly the kind of big, bold fun that cinemas were made for. And after so long without the big screen to comfort us, watching folk blast a rocket-powered muscle car into space feels like the perfect way to welcome us back to the movies.

More over the top than ever, Fast & Furious 9 represents another high-water mark in bonkers action for the franchise. With a clear knack for the preposterous, director Justin Lin sends the Fast series hurtling further into orbit to offer something that’s just about the right kind of stupid. However, saddled with a terrible plot, a distinct lack of energy, and a lingering air of familiarity, the cracks are really beginning to show for a franchise that needs to start thinking about how it’s going to make it to that finishing line.