Invite yourself to consider, is there a more improbably successful, or indeed, simply improbable franchise in the entirety of cinematic history than The Fast and the Furious? What began in 2001 as a mildly diverting and hacky Point Break rip-off, trading surfboards for street racing, has now fully metamorphosed into a globe-trotting action saga that has, amongst many absurd escalations, sent two of its supporting characters into actual outer space—in a car. Deniers will pinpoint this watershed moment in 2021’s F9 as the moment the series “jumped the shark,” but franchise devotees will know that Vin Diesel and crew had already leapt across a megalodon to get to this point. With Fast X, the first installment in a two, maybe three, part finale, it’s difficult to tell where parody ends and the movie begins. Diesel clearly still takes his most successful franchise seriously, but does anyone else?
Post-Fast Five, the long-running but not exactly “acclaimed” franchise experienced a sizeable mainstream and critical reevaluation. With a dose of self-awareness and a knack for one-upping themselves in creative, sometimes practical ways, the films were stupid, but in a charming, almost critic-proof fashion. Yet somewhere along the line, Diesel seemed to lose the plot. He declared in 2015 that Furious 7 would win Best Picture at the Oscars—it did not—only to make similar claims before the release of the eighth installment, The Fate of the Furious. Diesel’s misguided but genuine earnestness helped to sell the Fast movies as an ironic guilty pleasure, where the emotional portent combined with ever-increasing silliness gave the sense of being in on a multi-million-dollar joke that its star was appealingly oblivious to.
In Fast X, the joke eclipses everything. The first act is its most riotously entertaining, but it plays like an intentional parody of every single meme anyone has ever made about the series. Midway through the film, at the vaguely titled “Agency Headquarters,” Tess (Brie Larson) is briefed by new agency lead Aimes (Alan Ritchson) on the team’s previous exploits. Surrounded by holographic screens playing clips from the previous movies, Aimes dives into a meta summation of the entire Fast Saga: “if it could be done by a car, they did it. If it violates the laws of God and gravity, they did it twice.” Aimes later states “everyone they meet becomes a part of their family… like a cult.” Laughing at this series has always been part of the appeal, but it’s never felt more like the creators were desperate to be in on the joke. Fast X utilizes cheap self-awareness at the expense of making an actual movie, as if the entire script was generated though an algorithm. Excessive audience-winking is far from the script’s only fault though; some lines of dialogue are just plainly incoherent. “Roman,” Ludacris’s Tej chides early on to Roman (Tyrese Gibson), the franchise’s dubious source of comedic relief, “the only thing you know is Rome-man noodles.” I’m sorry, but what?
The storyline, which quickly dispenses our central team onto separate, somewhat unsatisfying side quests, concerns a convoluted revenge plot concocted by Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), the psychopathic son of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes from Fast Five. The first 20 minutes of Fast X clumsily insert Dante into pre-existing footage from that aforementioned film, establishing his desire to get back at Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and “tear his family apart… piece by piece” for killing his father. Momoa’s performance is intentionally absurd and will likely be a highlight for many. However, the character is a bizarre concoction. Apart from simply looking out of place, Momoa portrays Dante with a dubious mix of flamboyant peacocking and what could only be described as a Looney Tunes version of Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight. One particularly off-putting scene features Dante having a “girly” chat and painting the nails of two mutilated corpses he’s recently killed and stitched back together. The character is questionable, but that aside, he’s having a blast. Otherwise, the most energetic presences are series newcomer Larson and the returning Charlize Theron. It’s the gifted actors in Fast X that seem to be most aware of the movie they’re in, relishing every minute of screentime to be as goofy as possible.
It’s difficult to parse what makes a “good” installment in this series, but it most likely comes down to the directorial work of Justin Lin. Even F9, which took its characters completely into the realm of fantasy, was captured through Lin’s lens in articulate, energetic frames. Sure, Fast Five’s practicality was gone, but the set pieces still felt playful. Having left Fast X over “creative differences” with Diesel only 10 days into production, Lin has been replaced with Louis Leterrier, primarily known for his work on Now You See Me and 2010’s Clash of the Titans remake. There’s no nice way to say it—Leterrier is a hack. It’s Diesel behind the wheel, steering Fast X further into vanity project territory than ever before. There’s not a single emotional beat, especially from Dom, that doesn’t inspire incredulous laughter. While that’s certainly entertaining, it becomes exhausting when you consider that there’s possibly two more of these things. Fast X ends on a cliffhanger, and the series has never felt more like it was running out of road. It’s a movie that cares too much and not enough. Everything you want to see is here, from drag racing in the streets of Rio to Corona-fueled barbecues. But it’s in the wrong order, cheaply constructed with half a heart. Salud mi familia, better luck next time.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
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