Fast & Furious 8

In cinemas now! The Fast & Furious franchise has always featured classic cars in some way and the eighth instalment is no different.

In the opening scene, a rat rod 1929 Ford Model A and a 1956 Ford Fairlane race head-to-head for 20 frantic minutes through the narrow back streets of Havana. You get a great sense of the heavy classic car influence in Cuba’s capital and you rarely see anything post-1980.

Indeed, classics are littered through the rest of the movie with Dom (Vin Diesel) driving a 1970 Dodge Charger, a 1972 Plymouth GTX, and a 1961 Chevy Impala. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) races the New York streets in a 1965 Corvette while dodging hundreds of modern cars which are being controlled by computer hacker and villain, Cipher (Charlize Theron). It’s a nice mickey-take towards today’s automotive technology!

As with any Fast & Furious movie, there is non-stop action, ridiculously unimaginable stunts but also an easy-to-follow but intriguing plot that keeps you guessing until the end. Brit actor Jason Statham returns along with a cockney speaking Helen Mirren; imagine Peggy Mitchell from EastEnders and it’s worth a watch for that alone!

Two hours of cars, action and a touch of comedy is well worth the ticket price, even if it is a tad unbelievable. James Sadlier