WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for F9, now in theaters.
The Fast & Furious franchise is known universally for a couple consistent elements. Firstly, no matter what, Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto will bring up the theme of family, and secondly, every chapter has the most illogical, physics-defying stunts. With each passing film, it only gets sillier and make no mistake, F9 has the most ridiculous moments of them all.
It starts early on in F9, when Dom's crew is trying to escape a minefield in Montecito with the Aries weapon on board. They end up in a minefield and somehow, only the villains' cars blow up. Apparently, Dom's squad magically figured out how to avoid mines or speed over them so quickly, the bomb blasts won't get to them.
That imperviousness to shockwaves also applies to Roman (Tyrese). When he gets stuck in a rock crevasse, he slips out of the car and it falls on a mine. However, while he braces for it, the explosion doesn't affect him despite being mere feet away. This F9 sequence keeps upping the ante, though, because when Dom tries to race across a bridge, he finds it blown up. But in true Team Toretto fashion, he finds an impossible way across.
Dom speeds off the cliff, using one of the bridge's extension hooks to connect to his car. He then swings across the valley and slingshots himself to the other side. One might think that with the car flipping, it'd be smashed to pieces upon landing, but it isn't. Instead, Dom and Letty are alright because this is all in a day's work for them. Stuff like this is why Roman pokes fun at the team, wondering if they're superheroes or angels.
It gets even sillier later on in F9, as the cars use super-magnets to clear traffic, chuck enemy vehicles out of the way, push cops aside and bring down trailer trucks. The Tokyo Drift team then take a page from Roman, admitting their rocket-car isn't fireproof, they didn't perfect thruster issues and that Roman patching his astronaut suit with duct tape is the best option they have right now. Having John Cena's Jakob jump a car off a cliff and be caught by a plane may work, but bending the rules of astronauts and space exploration like this feels like pushing the envelope a bit too far.
As all this happens, when Otto's henchman betrays Jakob, Dom's brother is left stupefied as the thug smashes into a street sign atop the truck. They're going at high-speeds as well but miraculously, the sign shatters and he's left with no damage. It sets the stage perfectly for Roman and Tej to then be shot into space. These are guys who've outrun submarines and planes with cars, so it makes perfect sense that when their magnets can't fry a satellite's hard-drive, they choose violence. But as they ram it, somehow their car doesn't blow up too.
It's classic Fast & Furious logic, and of course, Dom's got to cap it off with his own crazy moment. Cipher ends up piloting a drone plane to fire missiles at him, but Dom knows a thing or two about turning trucks into WMDs. He flips his vehicle, careening it off a cliff so it lands on the roadway, and then takes it head on towards Cipher. Dom eventually times a missile so he can use the explosion to flip his truck at the jet, blowing it up. As he dives out unscathed, one can't help but wonder how they'll top these acts in future films.
Directed by Justin Lin, F9 stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, John Cena, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell and Charlize Theron. The film is in theaters now.