- Fast X
- Directed by Louis Leterrier
- May 12, 2023 (Colosseum) / May 19, 2023 (US)
Dom must protect his family from Dante Reyes, the son of Hernan Reyes, who is out for blood over his father’s death and the loss of his family’s power.
I went into this more than a little nervous. While I had heard praise for Jason Momoa’s performance as the villainous Dante Reyes, not too much good reached my ears concerning the rest of the movie. Fast X was sounding to me like the Last Jedi of FF movies. That assessment was kind. Though not all terrible, the bad certainly greatly outweighs the good in this TENTH installment and is a clear indication that this series has finally run its course.
I can honestly say Jason Momoa did kill it as Dante Reyes as everyone said. His villain is a previously unmentioned/unseen son (don’t you just hate those?) of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). Having suffered some serious trauma off camera during Fast Five, he is completely off his rocker. Dante is one of those baddies that’s one step ahead. That can be tough to pull off and feel intelligent rather than just a plot contrivance. I give them credit for making him feel well thought out. Dante has a master plan and falls into place naturally.
It is everything else in Fast X that’s the problem. First there are just far too many characters in this movie. It feels like every living FF character gets a cameo. That is an exaggeration but not by much. Many core cast member plus new tangential additions get a moment to show you they exist. Because of that without Dante to give some meat to their scenes the movie deflates like a tampered football.
Vin Diesel is supposed to be the star of this but either he wasn’t in that much (I really wish I had timed his screentime) or when he was his character was completely overshadowed by Jason Momoa or any number of things. I feel like Jason Dante was so much more significant than Dominic Toretto was. And what we did get of Dominic didn’t feel like a character. It felt like he was simply ticking off some boxes and going through the motions in a bad impersonation.
These days Brie Larson is most connected with the character of Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers but did do other stuff before for which she won praise. Her performance as Mr. Nobody’s daughter Tess gives her time as Captain Marvel a run for the title of terrible. Maybe she is just not cut out for action. Just stiff and maybe smug in moments that do not call for it. And given how easily her character loses control of the Agency and that she is Nobody’s daughter, it says bad things for the character.
Alan “Reacher” Ritchson joins the cast as the mysterious Aimes who takes over Mr. Nobody’s agency from the easily outmatched Tess. For most of the movie Ritchson gives Larson a run for the title of Worst FF Character. Until we see the big reveal, he’s absolutely boring and bland. Honestly the reveal feels a little bit out of leftfield as if it was an attempt to subvert the formula (which it obviously was) and not an attempt that was an organic outgrowth of the story.
No FF film was ever a cinematic revelation but they were generally better written than THIS! For example in an effort to bloat the cast Cipher (Charlize Theron) shows up in this to give Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) a warning and not much else. And it’s really not much of a warning all things considered. It’s one of those warnings that comes much too late to do any good but does shoehorn her in for upcoming events.
I’m no big John Cena fan but he certainly deserved better than he got here. Cena returns as Dom’s brother Jakob and is more punchline than he is anything else. Cena has been making forays into comedy and seems to go headfirst into that here, but Jakob wasn’t a joke character when he showed up the last time. I’m not sure why they decided to re-fashion him so completely different.
But I think my real beef is with the undeservedly famous Pete Davidson as Ramsey’s (Nathalie Emmanuel) friend Bowie. Not only does his scene add nothing but the character is as annoying as Davidson and brings the progress of the story to a stop. It is one of many moments of unnecessary comedy in a film that takes on a completely different tone than ANY of its predecessors.
Long story short our villain manages to turn the world against Dominic Toretto and make everybody think he’s a terrorist that tried to blow up Rome. I’m having a little trouble figuring out how people buy that over the long term. In a real-world sense there would always be some people that would buy it but I’m not getting how the authorities buy it in a real world or a fictional world sense. There’s a poop ton of witnesses that see them do a shit ton of stuff to stop the bomb. And I would think given that they know what the bomb is they would know that the devastation could’ve been far worse. It just seems it would be obvious after some mediocre investigation that they weren’t trying to conduct a terrorist attack.
The more recent crop of FF films are not serious movies, but they treated the material seriously. We had jokes, but it was all action and adrenaline pumping. This feels just sillier and goofier. The tone of this movie is completely different generally from the rest of the movies. They hit you over the head with the family thing, but it feels like they’re trying to poke fun at the family theme rather than actually drive home the family theme.
The action scenes didn’t make up for the lack of a good story or well executed premise. Maybe it was just going too heavy on the cute kid angle with Dominic’s son. You have to be careful with adding children to an action-oriented franchise because they can weigh things down if not handled properly and this kid was not handled properly at all. Then again nothing else was either.
I’m not sure how they explain the return of Gisele Yashar (Gal Gadot) who just pops out of a giant nuclear sub and doesn’t say a word and in a post credit scene, which was probably added in after the film was pretty much finalized we get Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). I guess after a couple of unsuccessful movies Dwayne Johnson decided to come back for a paycheck. This movie really could’ve used him THE WHOLE TIME.
I’m not against cliffhanger movies, but this film feels like half of a story. And half of a story that was dragged out into a full story. if you have a cliffhanger ending you need to at least make it feel like there’s some token closure even if there is not complete closure. It just doesn’t feel like there’s any kind of real strong resolution to this. The Hunger Games films each hinted at more to come (maybe not the first ones) but you felt you got some completion. I don’t feel like that here.
I really thought people were overblowing how bad this movie was. And sometimes that is true but I don’t necessarily think so in this case. There’s a half baked story that needed a little bit more work before they put it to screen. It’s just a script what they have to work with is not that good. There are far too many characters and not nearly enough focus on telling the narrative. Rather the focus is on justifying all the names they have in this.
Fast X is a movie I wish had been better. If you are a completist this is certainly worth watching but after the ninth film I think you could call that the end and ignore this one.
Warren Watched A Movie 