Vin Diesel can never fail me with his Family. Time and again for the last twenty-two years, with all the people coming and going, and as the stakes and feats get larger and larger, I’m still riding. My favorite modern action Franchise for sure, we are back again at the beginning of the end – FAST X. From whatever you might hear, this is the first of two movies to end things or the first of the trilogy to end things. FAST X begins with scenes from Fast Five connecting the new villain Dante to the villain of that film Herman Reyes, his father, and the fate of that big bad from the film of twelve years ago. Ten years later, Dom and Letty are still raising Little Brian, who’s now older, clearly around second or third-grader age, when they are visited by Cipher, who tells them they are all under attack. With Dante setting up The Family with a fake mission from the secret Agency they’ve worked with since Furious 7 puts The Family on the wrong side of the law again and on the run. Dante is on a mission to make Dom suffer for his part in his father’s death and for taking of his Family’s fortune. It’s scorched earth for him as Dom does whatever he can to save his Family from the newest, more dangerous threat.
This film is completely over the top and sometimes has vastly different tones. Vin Diesel’s Dom is just as consistent as he’s been in the last few entries. He was completely sincere in his line delivery and performance. His storyline is the most franchise classic style of the storylines in the film. His issues with Dante, played by the gregarious Jason Mamoa, takes thing back to an earlier feel – Brazil, the setting of what is the best entry in the franchise. In this film, Momoa is just having fun with this villain; he’s over the top and chews up the scenery on purpose. There are times it felt like he’s playing a supervillain; that was a modern style of a Batman ’66 episode. The B-plot of Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), and Han (Sung Kang), as they try to get to a rendezvous point, is where they have a lot of comedic team action that doesn’t always work and at times feels a bit too long but is very comfortable with seeing our favorites have an adventure. Michelle Rodriguez’s Letty does get to do some good action fights and stunt driving. Her fight that, which you see a piece of in the trailers with Charlize Theron’s Cipher, was terrific and brutal. It feels like an outlier in just how brutal it is between two women on screen. Well paced, shot, and was clear to follow; it was good to see them both get to go a little ham on the fights. Speaking of Theron, she really gets to show some of that Atomic Blonde ability in this one. After just being the big bad in this one, she gets down and dirty and really wish she was in more films doing this level of fighting and action. John Cena is back in this as a former bad guy and prodigal brother Jacob Torretto. His adventure is with Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry), who he needs to take care of to get to a meeting point, and here we get all that Cena charm and how good he is with kids. This is the make-a-wish John Cena on the screen where a kid is having the best road trip ever with this guy. Flying spy planes and riding a rocket shooting cars like something you’d see in Twisted Metal. Those are some of the most fun comedy scenes in the movie.
Now I know for many, this film franchise has gone too far in what they can do with their cars and surviving events, but to me, at this point, it’s part of the charm. The comparison to superheroes is an apt one even though, for most, it’s missing the colorful outfits and “superpowers,” yet there really isn’t much difference between these folks and characters like Batman, Green Arrow, or Hawkeye. Super adept people, excellence at a high level to the point of looking like magic, but it also works within the world of the film. It’s one they now reference in the films at how amazing some of the things they do are. I’ve always told people that these films also work like a Dungeons and Dragon campaign, and at this point, all the characters are at such a high level that it’s like cheating. That and Dom always rolls a twenty. So go in and sit back and enjoy this bombastic and totally awe-inspiring action movie.
Score: B+
