For the uninitiated, “F9” might sound like a movie about a computer function key. In an ideal world, that key would be used to remotely start your car and hit the accelerator. Beep, beep? Vroom, vroom! That’s because what “F9” is is the latest installment in the “Fast and Furious” franchise. (Try saying that five times fast.)
Usually loud and almost always ridiculous, “F9” is action-packed enough to make your carburetors seize up. That description is as much praise as put-down, since it’s just that formula which has brought in nearly $6.2 billion worldwide since the first movie came out, in 2001. The “F&F” actors don’t play superheroes — though, who knows, maybe Vin Diesel thinks he does — but they do have a superpower: getting away with the world’s most reckless driving.
Originally, Dom Toretto (Diesel) and his sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster), and his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and their pals were a crew of Southern California car thieves and street racers: Robin Hoods burning rubber. Cultural diversity met gearhead ecstasy, with LA as V-8 Valhalla.
Along the way, things . . . developed. Dom and company became an Impossible Mission Force on four wheels. They’ve continued to tach it up, but now it’s to save the world rather than just get some pedal-to-metal kicks (not that they don’t still get those, too).
“Save the world” sounds like an exaggeration. It’s not. In “F9” the gang is out to thwart the Bondly-villainous Cipher, who returns from the previous go-round, “The Fate of the Furious” (2017). Now she’s out to capture Project Aries. That item is sort of like an overgrown Infinity Stone that would allow her to take control of every electronic device on the planet, or something like that. With Aries in her hands, Cipher “reboots the world order in minutes,” as one character puts it. No wonder the street-racing scenes in “F9” are flashbacks. The gang’s RPMs are revving a lot higher these days.
Charlize Theron returns as Cipher. She’s the best thing in “F9.” The series has become action-movie camp without quite knowing it. This is both limitation and charm. Theron knows. This is both license and delight. She plays Cipher as a steelier version of Furiosa, her character from “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015). There’s supposed to be a prequel coming out in 2023, with Anya Taylor-Joy as the character. “The Faster and the Furiosa”?
Anyway, Cipher has a helper. As played by John Cena, he basically does double duty, filling the slots previously held in the series by Dwayne Johnson (the biceps) and Jason Statham (the bad-guy inexorability).
Dom and Letty are married and live a quiet rural life with their young son (Letty’s not the birth mother, but that’s another movie). It’s so rural that their old pals Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and somewhat newer pal Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) can’t call them — no cell coverage — and just show up, to enlist them in the pursuit of Cipher.
Dom doesn’t want to do it, but Letty knows better. “Careful’s when you get hurt,” she tells him. Later on she says, “It’s where we’ve been that’s got us this far.” Weightily empty lines are a series specialty, along with meaningful close-ups and all those car chases (and crashes).
The “Fast” movies are action pictures, of course. But starting with the third installment, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” (2006) they became travelogues, too. “F9” takes us to Central America, a really cool-looking hideaway somewhere near the Caspian Sea, Tokyo, London and Edinburgh (which means Dom gets to drive on the left), Cologne, Tbilisi, and outer space. Yes, cars have flown in “F&F” movies before, or at least parachuted. In “F9,” a Pontiac Fiero isn’t just a flying car. It’s a flying car in orbit.
“Tokyo Drift” was directed by Justin Lin, who directed and helped write “F9.” Lin has now directed five installments. Maybe that’s why this one feels a little rote? The action sequences are stupendous enough — or at least unrelenting enough — in a hey-look-at-me way. But they feel more obligatory than inspired. That’s true of several of the plot devices, too. A major character who died several installments ago shows up. Hey, hi, welcome back! A magnet the size of a delivery truck doesn’t just violate the laws of physics. It does so comically.
Or maybe the roteness is a function of looking inward. A distinguishing feature of the series has been its obsession with family. Dom sees the crew as a brotherhood and sisterhood. The bond everyone shares is practically sacred. This is a bit dopey. It can feel like a beer commercial if Hallmark made beer. It’s also kind of sweet.
The family thing goes into overdrive in “F9.” We learn that Dom and Mia have a brother, Jakob, who plays a pivotal role in the story. (Might Esau be Dom’s middle name?) The movie begins with an extended flashback to their father — who, wouldn’t you know, was a race-car driver — and his two sons — who, wouldn’t you know, worked in his pit crew.
For better and worse, Diesel deserves his top billing. He’s the star the series steers by. There’s no one else quite like him in movies: part action figure, part dashboard monk. He looks like an artillery shell, and that croak of a voice could be coming from a frog with a taste for motor oil. Twenty years is a long time, let alone to be doing this sort of thing. Diesel turns 53 next month. Do you drive as well as you did two decades ago? Me neither.
Not that it matters. “F9″ ends with the status of two major characters all but crying out “to be continued.” And halfway through the closing credits a familiar figure shows up, Easter egg fashion, so that makes three. Another installment is in the works, in fact, with Lin set to direct. At this rate, we’ll all be in self-driving cars by the time Dom and the gang turn in their keys. Fast? Yes. Furious, somewhat. Finished? Far from.
★★½
F9
Directed by Justin Lin. Written by Lin, Daniel Casey, and Alfredo Botello; based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson. Starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Nathalie Emmanuel, Charlize Theron, John Cena. At Boston theaters, suburbs. 145 minutes. PG-13 (violence, action, language).
Mark Feeney can be reached at mark.feeney@globe.com.