I think I can sum up the entirety of Fast X –nay the ENTIRETY of the Fast & Furious genre—in one moment. I’d warn “SPOILER” here, but I -personally- think it’s impossible to spoil a Fast & Furious film:
It is late in the movie and our hero, the beefotaur Dom (Vin Diesel) has just done the impossible in a car about four separate times. He finds himself on top of a dam (think Hoover), in the very middle of the strusrture’s arc by his lonesome in his special car facing perpendicular to the road, because if he isn’t facing perpendicular this scene doesn’t work. The villain (Jason Momoa, in arguably his best role to date as a thespian) has anticipated that Dom and the Dom mobile be exactly at this place at this time because if he doesn’t the scene doesn’t work.
So Dante (Momoa) says something malicious and immediately sets in motion semis approaching Dom from either direction, perfectly timed, of course, to crush the Dom mobile simultaneously. Dom, of course, utters something defiant about still having a car and then drives straight ahead, ramming through the safety and plummeting head-first down parallel to the near-vertical embankment. And while Dom is in the air aiming for a head-on collision with concrete, water, or both, he actually –and I swear I’m not making this up- switches gears.
What have you got, parachute mode? Here’s a man plunging to certain death or drowning or whatever still making moves as if he isn’t driving a car. I’m not sure what I could possibly say to influence your vote at this point. To me, this is the exact essence of these films and you either love it or you hate it. The Fast & Furious franchise operates in a completely different reality, a world in which good and bad are fleeting, defined and re-defined entirely by immediate attitudes/circumstances, a world in which suped-up muscle cars can not only defy, but escape gravity if need be, and a world in which all of life’s problems can be solved in a drag race.
At the beginning of the film, we are of the pretense that Dom and his crew are on the good side of the law. The “Agency” has asked them to do a job in Italy. For the sake of these films, a “job” always requires high tech and muscle cars to do something anybody not watching a film would consider criminal.
Ah, but Dom and his crew have been set up! And before anyone can explain the plot adequately, Dom and his buds find themselves racing through Rome in an attempt to avoid the police and diffuse a bomb with the size, shape, and temperament of the boulder at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. (This is all while sight-seeing, of course … “hey, the Spanish Steps!”)
Bottom line: Dom and his wee pals avert disaster but are now considered criminals again, which wouldn’t have happened had they just never gone to Rome in the first place. (I can’t stress that last part enough because I truly think the film gave no good reason for them to do this “Rome job.”)
Of course, if you’re going to a Fast & Furious film concerned about the plot … or science … or morality … you’re watching the wrong film. And every once in a while in Fast X, the metaphor of life as a muscle car is interrupted by the comedy stylings of Tyrese Gibson … who is not a comic.
The Fast & Furious genre now has names upon names upon names to draw from. And it does, generously. “Hey, it’s Charlize Theron!” “Hey, it’s Jason Statham!” I remember this kind of thing first being critiqued in Around the World in 80 Days. There ought to be a point to having a well-known celebrity suddenly appear on screen. Fast films don’t have points; they simply have ridiculous action peppered with comic relief in the form of Gibson or John Cena, who is also not a comic.
Does anybody else laugh when they see the Dominic Toretto wedding photos … ? I dunno where you shop for a sleeveless tux, but I need their number. My “pythons” need air in churches, too!
Fast X is a silly film. It is highlighted by outrageous stunts and Jason Momoa going so over-the-top in villainy, he’s coming around the bottom again. I find it impossible to care about these films for anything other than disposable entertainment (hence it is criminal that Fast X is a Part 1 film; there’s no way I will remember an ounce of it before Part 2 is released), but I can honestly say, this was an improvement on F9.
Welcome to the world of Fast X
Where large people engineer wrecks
Action always on display
In both night and day
They’d rather drive cars than have sex
Rated PG-13, 141 Minutes
Director: Louis Leterrier
Writer: Dan Mazeau, Justin Lin, Gary Scott Thompson
Genre: Try not to laugh out loud
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fast & Furious junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Jane Austen junkies
