Fast X: Film Review
The Fast and Furious series has finally reached its tenth instalment, Fast X, so you should be well aware of what to expect by now – leave your brain at the door and revel in the ridiculous madness that this franchise has become.
To start, you need to cast your mind back to 2011’s Fast Five, in which Dom (Vin Diesel) and his team stole a vault from drug lord Hernan Reyes. Well, now his son, Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) wants revenge for the death of his father and the loss of his family’s fortune – but he doesn’t want to kill Dom, he wants to make him suffer.
After a job in Rome goes wrong, the gang end up separated – with Tej (Ludacris), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Han (Sung Kang) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) together, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) on her own, and Dom going up against Dante without his “family”. Because they are split up for the majority of the film, the story has to cut between the various storylines, characters and locations and that kills the momentum a little. However, it also means there are more smaller-scale action sequences in addition to the big, gravity-defying setpieces.
The separate storylines also give Louis Leterrier more opportunities to maximise the guest appearances. There are so many characters in this movie and some feel unnecessary. For example, Brie Larson‘s character is underused and pretty pointless (which is a shame because I love her) and Helen Mirren returns for one scene to deliver a message anybody else could have given. I get that they want to keep bringing back the familiar faces while adding in new ones but it’s hard to keep up. This franchise brings family members of existing characters out of the woodwork like nobody’s business.
Momoa is easily the best thing about this movie; he is clearly having a blast playing the quirky, flamboyant, androgynous villain and he steals every scene he’s in. Dante is unhinged and sadistic but he does it with so much panto-style flair and I can’t wait to see more of him. He made me laugh the most, although Tej and Roman are still great in the comedic department. John Cena‘s character Jakob has also been completely transformed from a villain in F9 to a comic-relief character in this. The characterisation made no sense but he was entertaining.
Those four characters are the only ones that had inspired dialogue (particularly Dante), while the rest of the script felt like it could have been written by AI based on the previous movies – it feels very rote. But we’re not here for the script and the acting – it is all about the high-octane action. Some of the setpieces were very cool and it was nice to see the ladies getting more screentime for kicking butt. It ends on such a huge action cliffhanger and I’m surprised “to be continued” didn’t appear onscreen.
Fast X delivers exactly what we’ve come to expect from the franchise – mindless, escapist cinema at its most outlandish. Make sure you stay for the mid-credits scene.
In cinemas from Friday 19th May