Certificate: 12A
Running Time: 141 mins
UK Distributor: Universal
WHO’S IN FAST X?
Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jason Momoa, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, John Cena, Jason Statham, Sung Kang, Alan Ritchson, Daniela Melchior, Scott Eastwood, Helen Mirren, Charlize Theron, Brie Larson, Rita Moreno, Luis Da Silva, Ludmilla, Pete Davidson, Leo Abelo Perry, Joaquim de Almeida
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Louis Leterrier (director), Justin Lin (writer, producer), Dan Mazeau (writer), Vin Diesel, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Neal H. Moritz and Samantha Vincent (producers), Brian Tyler (composer), Stephen F. Windon, (cinematographer), Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto, Corbin Mehl and Laura Yanovich (editors)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his crew face their deadliest foe yet (Momoa)…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON FAST X?
Picture the scenario: it’s 2001, and just after having seen that new street racing picture The Fast and the Furious, your best friend gets into an accident (probably from trying to emulate the car stunts they just saw) and lands in a coma. They then wake up to suddenly find that it’s 2023, and it’s your job to explain to them every important thing that they’ve missed in the last twenty-two years. Once that’s done, the conversation comes back round to the last film that they remember seeing, and out of curiosity they ask if they made any sequels. Their face, upon you telling them that not only were there many, many sequels, but that each of them has stuff in it – from bank heists featuring cars pulling safes through the streets of Rio de Janeiro from, to 007-baiting international espionage missions, to blasting a car into actual space – that makes the DVD player thieving in that first movie look extremely miniscule by comparison, is one of pure bewilderment and confusion. After all, he’s just heard that while he was unconscious, the world has seen destructive acts of terrorism, international wars, a pandemic, and even Donald Trump in the White House, and yet it’s the wildly overblown direction that the Fast & Furious franchise has taken which has left him utterly lost for words.
Now, try imaging how they’ll look upon hearing that Fast X, the tenth film in the franchise (or eleventh, if you count the 2019 spin-off Hobbs and Shaw), somehow takes the craziness to a whole other level, in a big and bombastic action extravaganza that is both impossibly ridiculous, and ridiculously impossible to hate upon. It is, like so many movies in this gloriously stupid franchise, an utter showcase of physics-defying and logic-free action set-pieces with plotting straight out of the world’s most over-the-top soap opera, but it never seems to take itself so seriously and has an absolute blast being as silly as it possibly can.
In Fast X, we see Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his extended surrogate family – including Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Ramsay (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Han (Sung Kang) – being targeted by their most ferocious enemy yet, in the form of Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa). Dante, as we learn in a repurposed collection of footage from the fifth film that make up this movie’s prologue, was the son of that film’s ill-fated villain Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) and has spent the last ten years plotting dastardly revenge. His plan involves framing Toretto et al for an attack in Rome, forcing them all on the run from new government agency head Aimes (Alan Ritchson), while Dominic seeks to save his family by heading back to Rio – with some assistance from rogue agent Tess (Brie Larson) – and confronting Dante face-to-face, before he has a chance to do some serious harm.
As always, plot hardly matters when there’s every excuse for a big explosive action sequence to dominate the screen, and in Fast X that’s truer than ever. New director Louis Leterrier (a last-minute replacement for long-time franchise champion Justin Lin, who dramatically vacated the role a week after filming began) brings his trademark non-stop energy to the proceedings, ensuring that there is always something attention-grabbing on the screen whether it’s the gliding camerawork following every major vehicle during a high-speed chase, or the quick-cut editing that nearly makes the cutting in the Taken sequels feel restrained by comparison (even when it isn’t an action scene, a simple moment of characters dining together is edited to leave you breathless). Lin’s slightly more reserved direction is certainly missed, but there is something about marrying Leterrier’s kinetic style with the loud and over-the-top nature of this franchise that oddly makes sense, and pairing this filmmaker with this material feels like an appropriate step for the franchise as a whole.
When you’re not overwhelmed by the constant action being given to you at alarming speeds, Fast X offers plenty of familiar and new areas of ridiculousness for you to enjoy. Perhaps the most notable of these is the inclusion of Jason Momoa as the franchise’s big new bad, a wildfire and completely unhinged creation who’s like if The Joker was a Looney Tunes character. Momoa more than understands the assignment of giving this increasingly silly franchise a villain that matches the overall heightened tone, and while his excessive over-the-top nature may take away some genuine intimidation – this is a character who is seen at various points dressed in flamboyant vinyl clothing, blowing raspberries and cackling maniacally like he’s Daffy Duck tormenting Elmer Fudd, and even paining the toenails of people he’s apparently just killed while wearing his long hair up in Princess Leia-esque buns – to say that Momoa is having the time of his life would be to undermine how much fun he is having here.
Everything else about Fast X is pretty much what you’d expect from one of these movies at this point, including (but not limited to) fast cars, CG explosions, stunt work that continuously defies gravity, monologues about family, and even the odd street race every now and then. Only here, it’s all been dialled up to well beyond eleven, and then threatens to go even further by ending things on a cliffhanger that promises even crazier stuff yet to come. It is quite possibly, out of an entire movie franchise that has completely embraced its status as an overblown action soap opera, the most Fast & Furious of the lot, which is to say utterly preposterous but never dull, and featuring several of its greatest hits yet still finding new ways to take itself to even more extreme levels.
I can’t say it’s a great movie – the style is perhaps a bit too kinetic for my personal tastes, as it often is with a Louis Leterrier flick – but if your formerly comatose friend is confounded but oddly entertained by everything that happens in this impressively dumb series, then what’s to say that you too can’t just buckle up and enjoy the insanity of it all?
SO, TO SUM UP…
Fast X takes the expected preposterousness and over-the-top energy of the ongoing action franchise and takes it well beyond its limits, with director Louis Leterrier’s kinetic style and a hugely entertaining villain turn by Jason Momoa forming only part of the impressively ridiculous entertainment that might make this the most Fast & Furious movie of the lot.
Fast X is now showing in cinemas nationwide
