X gon give it to ya fo sho! Even DMX’s drunken driving would be right at home in Fast X, a movie completely drunk on this moment in time. There’s no time for slowing down as director Louis Leterrier takes us on many intercontinental roads with all sorts of random good guys trying to take down Jason Momoa. Forget jumping the shark, we’re jumping Jason Statham’s Meg at this point.
At this point in time, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) is pretty happy. He’s happily raising little “B” (Leo Abelo Perry) with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his extended family, including his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) and his Abuelita (yes, Oscar winner Rita Moreno, sure). The group’s latest mission for the Agency is to steal some electronics in Rome from bad guys, which Dom sits out and lets Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Han (Sung Kang) plan the heist. But the Agency doesn’t know that Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) is also on his way to Rome, filled with vengeance and a score to settle with Dom and his family.
Leterrier’s take on the Fast & Furious franchise imbibes heavily on what the franchise does best. Even though we never go back to space, the action here is pretty great. Leterrier gives us 3 giant car setpieces with a smattering of small on the ground fighting with all the famous action stars in the movie that deliver the goods. But this starts and ends with family. Fast X doubles down: this time, we got an evil family to balance the positive vibes from Dom’s family. The opening credits explain what happened to Dante Reyes and why he might have a vendetta against the Toretto clan. Though not Earth shattering character development, it’s effective, and Jason Momoa’s casting make Dante a Fast and Furious villain to remember. Momoa is the best part of X, sociopathically and charismatically going about trying to destroy Dom’s family as Toretto helplessly watches. On our hero’s side, because of Dom’s capability of turning Fast villains into family members, X splits the team up into various parts and scatters them across the planet, giving us interesting actor pairings. I was a particular fan of the Michelle Rodriguez/Brie Larson/Charlize Theron trifecta of badassery; this is the most Theron has had to do in any of these movies, showing off all those incredible fighting skills she’s learned over the past decade. We’ve got the forced comic relief in the Roman/Tej/Ramsey/Han group, and unintentional comic relief with Vin Diesel and any actor better than he is: I was particularly floored when Vin, staring out a window looking at nothing, asked what he is staring at by Letty, responds with a drunken sounding “You.” Room level perfection.
Fast X also overserves the audience on the Fast and Furious worst tendencies. With all the explosions and constant threat of mass murder and friends in peril, all these people love to do is make sure that last joke lands, completely undercutting any tension the movie wants us to feel for anyone involved. New family members are being added all the time (including at least 3 in this one), with no new characters taken off the board, further bloating an already bloated cast. But worst of all, the constant need to up the ante and scale leads to the worst decisions. There’s a couple surprises in the third act. The first one you don’t see coming, and made me actually feel something. Then the ending throws giant surprises 2 and 3. While shocking in the moment, the choices undercut and retcon all sorts of stuff we know about our current cast. Furthermore, it is going to make a bunch of people angry and ask really obvious questions the writers don’t really care to answer rendering a bunch of previous movies even more pointless and further removing any possibility of “stakes” in these Fast and Furious movies; I saw multiple people when cars weren’t exploding pick up their phones, because the audience knows they’re not going to learn anything interesting in these over 2 hour movies if a car isn’t involved.
So Fast X is going to make a bunch of people movie drunk for sure. But remember, drinking and driving leads to DUI’s or in the Fast & Furious case, movie franchise purgatory. We’re going to get more of the same, empty stuff, completely reliant on good action. Everyone involved here better be careful: Fast & Furious is heading down into Transformers territory. Maybe its time to rethink things: time travel into the future or something, and give us Fast & Furious in space, with a whole new cast & perogative. But I know this movie’s gonna make a billion dollars, so what do I know anyways? Family always wins.