FAST X Review
"It certainly will be interesting to see whether the fans appreciate this tenth installment more than I did."
I had been hemming and hawing over the past week, deciding whether I wanted to review this movie. Part of it is that I didn’t exactly see it under the best circumstances. I had another one of my infamous three-hour sleeps the night before, and by the time I got to my screening (after seeing John Wick: Chapter 4 a second time), I was dead tired. Also, this is now the second installment directed by someone I’ve known for a very long time (Louis Letterier), and I went into this with excitement for him but also with a little bit of trepidation, because let’s face it, this is the tenth movie in this series, and they haven’t necessarily been getting better with each one.
The plot is easy enough to parse without much in terms of spoilers, because it involves another bad guy wanting to get revenge on Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto and his crew for some transgression of theirs. In this case, it goes back to that amazing heist chase with a giant vault in Rio de Janeiro from Fast Five, this time showing it from the perspective of Jason Momoa’s Dante Reyes, the son of an authority figure who died in that chase who wants to make Dom and his whole family suffer. He begins my luring a few of the crew to Rome where he unleashes a powerful bomb at the Vatican with most people blaming Dom’s team for the carnage. From there, we travel to a bunch of other places, eventually getting back to Rio where Dante challenges Dom to a race where the stakes are higher than usual, but it’s pretty standard for one of these movies.
Although the story is just fine, it’s a little weird how all of these villains from past installments end up joining the family, there even being a joke about that in the movie, making it quite META. But there’s a certain point where you wonder whether that might be the least realistic aspect of a series of movies that have proudly worn the impossibility their bigger set pieces on its sleeve.
Possibly the worst example of this is how John Cena’s character from the last movie, Dom’s angry brother, has turned a new leaf and now is the fun uncle who goes on a side adventure with Dom’s tween son. That’s one place where “Fast X” goes way beyond the formula for better or worse. For the most part, those sections act more like the film’s comedy relief than the ongoing Roman-Tej feuding, which has gotten quite stale and is barely funny anymore.
Some people love how over-the-top Momoa takes his character, but it’s really hard to take the stakes very seriously when he’s constantly acting so flamboyant amidst all his killing and destruction. It’s certainly a change from all the stoic baddies of past movies, but there’s a reason why the movies are so successful, and part of that comes down to a formula that generally works for those who like it.
So many actors are just flat-out wasted, whether it’s Rita Moreno, who is introduced early as the matriarch – one that has yet to ever be mentioned in nine previous movies – but one who never shows up again. Others like Dame Helen Mirren show up briefly for no particular reason and with no real purpose to the story. Remember Jordana Brewster as Dom’s little sister Mia? Well, she’s barely in the movie other than in the obligatory BBQ scene and another scene when Dante’s men invade their home. I was hoping that Jason Statham would be used more due to his prior work with Letterier (the first two Transporter movies), but Shaw (or is it Hobbs?) basically shows up for one scene, and not much more.
Many of the problems come from the script, written by Justin Lin before he vacated the director’s chair, so you can’t fully blame Letterier for some of the movie’s main issues. Although no one will be going to see “Fast X” for the writing or acting, there is something to be said about those hoping to see their favorite characters in a movie and maybe not getting as much as they hoped.
The action itself is perfectly fine with some impressive set pieces, but even those seem to be lacking compared to some of the bigger moments directed by Lin and other directors. The worst part of it is the visual effects, especially when it comes to adding fire to some of these big action moments, and that fire almost always looks fake. On the other hand, Letterier finds some great locations in Rome and Portugal to give those scenes suitable eye candy.
It certainly will be interesting to see whether the fans appreciate this tenth installment more than I did. There’s a certain point where these movies have gotten too big for their own good, and it was a real struggle to find moments that really stood out in this one, even compared to F9. If Universal really plans on making two more of these, they really need to bring in writers more on par with Chris Morgan… after the WGA strike is over, of course.
Rating: 6.5/10