You don’t need logic when you have… family
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Written by: Justin Lin, Zach Dean, & Dan Mazaeu
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Momoa
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language, and some suggestive material
Release Date: May 19, 2023
Runtime: 2:21
This review may contain spoilers
This is how old?!
Remember when this series was about drag racing, decked-out imports, and DVD player heists? Yeah, that’s how old this franchise is – Vin Diesel was stealing DVD players in highway heists. Then, it was Tokyo drifting. Now they’re basically street-level superspies who fight mercenaries and crime lords. Things escalated, like, a lot.
This is a weird franchise.
The end of the road begins
Vin Diesel returns as legendary street racer Dom Toretto, finding former villain Cipher (Charlize Theron, Monster) at his door. She warns him of someone worse coming – Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa, HBO’s Game of Thrones). Dante is out for revenge against Toretto and his Fast family (just like every other villain in the last three films) for his father’s death in Fast 5. Everyone in the Fast & Furious films is a target, including Toretto’s son.
Annnnd, that’s the main plot. You add in a bunch of CGI car chases, adrenaline-injecting explosions, and physics-defying stunts, and there’s your movie.
The Fast & Furious Franchise
This 20-year franchise (which totally doesn’t make me feel old) started in 2001 with a Point Break rip-off movie. Oh, please, it totally is. An undercover cop working his way into an extreme sports/racer gang suspected of pulling big heists. The same cop befriended the leader and hooked up with the leader’s sister. The same cop then questions the moral line of duty and winds up letting the leader go because of friendship. Come on, it’s Point Break.
The Fast & Furious films have had cars do everything from driving through high-rise skyscrapers, outrunning submarines on ice, and frickin’ launching them into outer fucking space to take down satellites.
The only thing missing now is Dom driving his car backwards and time-traveling back to the past to stop the bad guy.
Admittedly, I actually enjoy the ludicrous path F&F has gone. 100% dumb entertainment. I have fully embraced the bat-shit insanity of The Fast and the Furious franchise and want more.
Logic, you have no power here…
If you thought that Fast & Furious were just mindless action movies with fast cars and dudes saying family over and over again, well, you’re right! And Fast X is no different. This is fun action with ridiculous stunts and little to zero sense of what’s happening. It’s what you’d expect from this franchise, and it’s an adrenaline-fueled guilty pleasure.
It’s also fun to see them escalating the craziness. In the last movie, they flew into space. That seems to be the peak of absurdity since the most extreme things in this movie were riding down the side of an exploding dam and pulling helicopters out of the sky by jumping off a raised freeway.
Dante’s Inferno
So, hands down, Jason Momoa didn’t just steal the show, he stole the whole damn movie. I’m pretty sure director Louis Leterrier told him to just go crazy and have fun.
Momoa’s Dante is a sick maniac who seems unstoppable. He’s had since Fast 5 to plan his revenge against the Fast family and is always five steps ahead of everyone. Dante always has an army, many of them shown to be forced into working for him by kidnapping their loved ones. He also had an infinite supply of bombs, blowing up cars and dams, and all sorts of fun explosions.
He’s also a fun guy. Momoa had a ton of energy in this role, laughing and just having a good ol’ time. Dante even sticks his tongue out at Toretto like a child.
Actually, Dante sounds more and more like The Joker.
Either way, Momoa’s performance is the best part of the film. He hams it up in every scene and just makes it entertaining, even when he’s supposed to be a sociopathic mass murderer.
Drivers… ASSEMBLE!!!
This is like the Avengers of Fast & Furious. Nearly every main character of the past films is here – Letty (Michelle Rodriguez, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), Mia (Jordana Brewster, The Faculty), Roman (Tyrese Gibson, Transformers), Tej (Ludacris, Hustle & Flow), Ramsay (Nathalie Emmanuel, HBO’s Game of Thrones), Han (Sung Kang, Bullet to the Head), Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood, The Longest Ride), Shaw (Jason Statham, Snatch), and even Dame Helen Mirren return.
Now that Cipher isn’t the top villain anymore, it looks like she’ll be part of the family, but more like Shaw. Jakob (John Cena, HBO’s Peacemaker) even shows back up, now being the super-cool uncle for Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry) instead of being the stone-cold mercenary he just was in the last movie.
Captain Marvel’s Brie Larson and Blue Mountain State’s Alan Ritchson also join the franchise as Tess Nobody and Aimes, respectively. Even the great Rita Moreno appears as Toretto’s grandma.
Next time on Fast & Furious
So apparently, this is the summer of cliffhangers. Fast X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and soon, Mission: Impossible. And, if you didn’t know; wellll… now, you do.
But, yes, Fast X ends with a cliffhanger; no big celebration BBQ this time. No, everything ends with everyone dying or about to, villain twists, and a surprise character returns.
And most likely, this next movie won’t be until 2025. Great.
Same Fast, same Furious
Fast X is the same dumb entertainment they’ve been giving us for years. It’s a perfect time to turn your nagging brain off and just enjoy the crazy ride. Have fun, and don’t question the car magic Dom and family can do behind the wheel.
The story is repetitive from the previous films, circulating someone trying to kill Dom and friends for something they did in the past. It’s more or less an easy way to give Dante the motivation for his chaotic assault.
I didn’t know end-credit scenes were in these movies until the eighth one. Fast X has a mid-credit scene, showing Dante doesn’t just have Toretto as part of his revenge plan. Stay tuned for Fast X.5 or whatever they’re calling it.
Fast X is currently playing in theaters.
