The Fast and the Furious movies seem to combat ongoing franchise fatigue by simply doing what they do best while adding colorful characters to its increasing cinematic family. In the case of Fast X, we have Jason Momoa showing up as the new villain, Dante who has a score to settle with Dom (Vin Diesel). You see, Dom killed his dad in Fast 5 and now, he wants payback because… you know… family. To his credit, Momoa injects some much-needed pizzazz into the proceedings with his smarmy screen presence and hammy scenery chewing. In some scenes, he dresses like a cross between Sailor Ripley and Tony Montana. In others, he looks like a cross between a genie and a grandma. All the while, he does enough mustache twirling to make him seem right at home in a silent movie. Even if you’ve grown tired of the typical F & F nonsense, you might want to see it for his Nicolas Cage levels of WTF theatrics.
As for the movie itself, it’s pretty much another day at the office for the F & F crew. Cars go vroom. Bombs go boom. Asses twerk in slow motion. There are scenic shots of the ocean.
Damn, I bet you didn’t think you’d get a poem in the middle of a Fast X review, but that’s just the quality reviewing my fans have come to expect from The Video Vacuum.
Director Louis Leterrier does a solid job with the action. I wish he went a little crazier at times, but since there are a couple of scenes that pay homage to his legendary masterpiece, Transporter 2, it was all good. I’m thinking specifically of the crane scene and the race where bombs are planted on the bottom of cars. (Not to mention the third act appearance of the Transporter himself, Jason Statham, who gives the film a boost of testosterone late in the game.)
I mean, the action scenes are fun, even if they are just variations in what we’ve seen before in other entries. (Like Dom and company trying to maneuver a rolling bomb through the streets of Rome, cars dropping out of cargo planes, etc.) They also do the patented F & F thing of having the villain from previous movies becoming aligned with Dom and his crew. (In this case, it’s Charlize Theron’s Cipher, who gets a great knockdown drag out fight with Michelle Rodriguez).
Other additions include Brie Larson as Kurt Russell’s daughter… because… you know… family (Kurt is sadly MIA in this one after putting in a ten second cameo in F9) and Reacher’s Alan Ritchson as the new CIA head who wants Dom’s head on a platter. The movie really belongs to Momoa though. I mean, when’s the last time we saw a villain giving one of his dead underlings a pedicure?
Oh, and say what you want to about this movie, but about ten minutes into the flick, Rita Moreno drinks a Corona… so… family… I guess?
AKA: Fast and Furious 10.
Yeah this was pretty rad, i'm still hoping Edwin from the first movie comes back for the next one somehow as well as Eva Mendes(Cruel of them to tease her at the end of Fast 5 and never follow up on it)and more of Russell.
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