Cipher (Fast and Furious)

"Everything is a choice."

- Cipher's most famous line.

Cipher is the overarching antagonist of the film series The Fast and the Furious; appearing as the main antagonist in its 8th installment The Fate of the Furious and as the main antagonist in Hobbs and Shaw along with Brixton Lore.

She is a manipulative and ruthless cyber-terrorist intent on world domination via igniting World War III via a Russian nuclear submarine.

She was portrayed by the Academy Award winning actress Charlize Theron, who also portrayed Millie Bobeck in Reindeer Games, Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman, and Aileen Wuornos in Monster.

Appearance
Cipher is a powerful mastermind who manages to corrupt Dominic Toretto into betraying his family and working for her by kidnapping his former love interest, Elena Neves, and their son, Brian Marcus (which Dom never knew about). After sending Dom across the world to steal and deliver several items for her, she is eventually betrayed by him. Despite both Shaw brothers joining up with Dom in order to take down Cipher, she evades capture or death and is at large still.

Past
Cipher is an extremely skilled hacker. Due to her immense power, it was believed for a long time that Cipher was an organization and not a person.

Recruiting Dom
Cipher first encounters Dom during his honeymoon with Letty on Cuba where Cipher instigates the breakdown of her car as she knows that Dom will stop to help her. After gaining Dom's attention, Cipher reveals that she is fully aware of what is wrong with her car, having manipulated it herself. Dom is startled and Cipher reveals that she has been watching Dom for quite some time to the extent of studying his daily schedule. Cipher reveals that she wants Dom to work for him but Dom refuses. Before Dom can walk away, Cipher hands him a phone which contains something that seems to worry Dom. Cipher claims that Dom will effectively betray his family, work against his friends and will join with Cipher to do his bidding. Thus, by showing him the content of his phone she effectively blackmails Dom into working for her.

Heists
Throughout the movie, she sends Dom on a number of missions to acquire the items needed for her evil plan, starting by forcing him to deliberately drive his old companion Hobbs off the road after a successfully heist in Berlin in order to steal the EMP the team obtained, delivering it to Cipher who picks him up moments later by bringing a cargo plane down onto the street into which Dom then drives mid-flight. The plane takes off immediately after, taking Dom and the EMP with them. Inside the plane, Cipher mocks Dom for his lifestyle and tries to convince him that her way is better. Meanwhile, the rest of Dom's former team is briefed about Cipher and encouraged to take her down in order to find Dom.

Cipher and her team later ambush and storm a government base where, ironically, Mr. Nobody is currently amassing Dom's former team to hunt Cipher down. Disorienting all federal agents and Dom's former team, Cipher storms the room with Dom where she mocks him for already having been replaced by Deckard Shaw. She also reminds Deckard that she made him an offer once, claiming that he chose the wrong side back then. While Dom keeps his former team at bay, Cipher steals data from one of the computers, stealing the entire hard drive. When Letty furiously screams at Dom for betraying his family, Cipher deliberately provokes her by kissing Dom in front of her. Back inside their plane, Dom angrily confronts Cipher because of the kiss. Annoyed by Dom's outburst of defiance, Cipher claims that she needs to remind Dom why he chose to be there with her. Her henchmen open a door, revealing that Dom's former girlfriend Elena and her and Dom's son are Cipher's prisoners - revealing that Jon betrayed his spiritual family for his real family.

After allowing Dom some time with Elena and her son, Cipher interrupts the meeting. She implies that with only her and her henchman Connor Rhodes in the room, Dom might get the idea that he could take both of them down and free Elena. She even hands Dom a gun, telling him to do with it whatever he pleases. However, she reveals that the room is filled with cameras and that the moment Dom makes a move, armed henchmen of Cipher will enter the room with one sole goal; not saving her, but killing Dom's son. Realizing the futility of his situation, Dom hands the gun back to Cipher.

Now in New York, Cipher uses her hacking network to track down the Russian Minister of Defense who is currently visiting the city. When she has located the man, who is currently driving in a car column, she informs Dom of the man's exact location. While Dom is approaching his target, Cipher holds contact with him via headphones. She then creates a distraction by hacking into hundreds of car controls, manually sending all these cars onto the streets of New York. Cipher creates complete chaos in New York, even using cars that are currently manned. She sends the hundreds of cars towards the Minister's convoy, effectively cutting him off from any help and taking down his police escorts. Cipher also activates the cars in car dealerships, bringing them onto the street in order to stop the upcoming police from reaching the minister. Using more and more empy and manned cars, Cipher blocks any escape route for the convoy, finishing her action with dropping multiple cars from the roof of a car park and trapping the minister's sole remaining car amidst the wreckage. After Dom has obtained a suitcase from the Minister, Cipher congratulates him and tells him that they will meet at the pickup. When she is then informed by Dom that his team has come, Cipher tells Dom that he will have to deal with this situation himself. She orders him to get rid of his team before returning to the pickup.

Losing Dom
When Dom is forced to escape on foot, Cipher sends in Rhodes to assist him. However, when Rhodes threatens the life of Letty, Dom draws a gun on Rhodes, forcing him to spare Letty. The two head back to Cipher with the suitcase which is revealed to contain a nuclear code. Back at the cargo plane, Cipher reveals that she is disappointed with Dom for "betraying" her. When Cipher welcomes Dom back, he holds Dom's son in her arms. She claims that Dom made a choice and that it is now time for him to learn. Although she claims that she understands what Dom did, he made the wrong choice nonetheless. Cipher then orders Rhodes to execute Elena in from of Dom's eyes. After Elena's death, Cipher tells Dom to get it together, as they have one last job to do. She also claims that she did not have Dom steal the nuclear codes in order to start a nuclear war, she stole them to have the world's superpowers know that they will be held accountable by her should they make a wrong move.

Cipher and her team then fly to Northern Russia, intending to attack a hidden military base. Again, she sends Dom in to do the dirty work while she and the rest of her crew are observing from their plane. It is revealed that she has attached the EMP they stole to Dom's car, allowing him to take down the entire bases electricity. This also includes a nuclear submarine, which Cipher and her hackers then hack and hijack. As Dom's actions allowed Cipher to hack the entire bases main system, she has the submarine activated as she intends to launch one of its missiles. When she realizes that Dom's former team has turned up once more, she informs Dom that the plan has changed. She sends him coordinates and orders him to meet up with Rhodes. Meanwhile, Ramsey, the hacker from Dom's group, counter-hacks Cipher in order to keep the submarine in the hangar. This leads to a digital fight between Cipher and Ramsey, both women fighting to regain control over the submarine.

Eventually, Cipher is able to lock Ramsey out of the system and successfully takes control of the submarine. She also manages to start the launch protocol of one of the nuclear missiles, intending to use it as a warning to the world that she is a force to be reckoned with. However, the team manages to steal the chip from the submarine, preventing Cipher from launching any missile. Realizing this, Cipher has the entire submarine launched into the ocean, planning to steer it into deep water in order to recover the missiles later. After Dom has met up with Rhodes, Cipher orders Rhodes to take out Dom's team.

During all the chaos, Cipher's untraceable plane is suddenly approached by two heltmet-masked men in jet pack suits. The two enter the cargo hold and are revealed to be the Shaw brothers. Deckard and Owen storm the plane, revealing themselves to Cipher who for the first time is shown to be afraid. She sends her men at the brothers who manage to take them down. The Shaws manage to rescue Dom's son, taking any influence she has on Dom away from her.

Chase through the Ice
After Dom is informed, he immediately betrays Cipher and kills Rhodes in revenge for Elena's death. When Cipher contacts Rhodes, she realizes that he is dead and congratulates Dom for having just executed his son. Dom, however, replies that he saved him. Realizing that everything she worked for seems to be in danger, she orders the submarine's torpedoes to be launched in order to kill Dom's entire team who are still escaping over the frozen ocean. She fails, however, as Hobbs manages to divert the torpedoes before they can kill his team. After Cipher learns that the torpedoes missed, she has the entire submarine breach through the ice.

As a last option, she has a heat-seeking missile fired from the submarine, vengefully planning to kill Dom and his crew. However, the missile pursues Dom who drives straight towards the submarine. Although Cipher shockedly realizes what Dom is doing, she is unable to prevent the missile from hitting the submarine, destroying it completely.

With her plan fully destroyed, Cipher prepares to flee. She grabs her laptop containing her most vital information, but is then confronted by Deckard who is just shooting her remaining man. Cipher notes that Deckard is out of bullets, but Shaw replies that he does not need bullets to eliminate her. He vows to kill her for what she did but Cipher claims that there is one flaw in his plan, Cipher is the only one with a parachute. With the press of a button, Cipher opens the plane's door and is sucked out immediately. Deckard, however, manages to get hold of both Dom's son and a handle, preventing himself from being sucked out of the plane. The doors are sealed moments later. Although Shaw survived, Cipher manages to escape via parachute and lives to fight another day.

Trivia

 * Cipher is the first villain in the series to get away scot-free by the end of the movie.
 * It is revealed that she was the Greater Scope Villain for both Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7, having hired Owen Shaw, Mose Jakande and Brixton Lore. Essentially, Cipher is the true main antagonist of the entire film series, given the fact that Owen Shaw was associated with Arturo Braga, the main antagonist of Fast & Furious, the first film that was responsible for later events concerning Letty in Fast & Furious 6.
 * Cipher is also the first female main villain in the series.
 * She will appear again as the main antagonist of the upcoming Fast and Furious 9 and 10.
 * By far, Cipher is often considered to be the darkest Fast and Furious villain, and the severity caused by her crimes had even exceeded that of Owen Shaw, going as far as to use both him and his brother as pawns.