Dom in The Challenger may be able to solo any hero in fiction but not even he can solo this overstuffed entry in the Fast Saga
The Fast Saga is something else, man. If you’ve kept track of the franchise since its rebirth with Fast and Furious, you’ll know these movies have become more outrageous with each installment. To me, these movies jumped the shark with Fast and Furious 6, when Dom jumped over a bridge to save Letty (who was in midair, mind you) and they landed comfortably on the windshield of a nearby car. That moment really put these movies in another realm regarding the laws of physics. From there, each movie got more and more outrageous with Furious 7 featuring a car jumping between two buildings and The Rock flexing out of his cast. The Fate of the Furious featured zombie cars, a race against a submarine on a Russian icecap, and The Rock pushing a missile with his bare hands. F9 was a movie (as I’m writing this I’m blanking on most of the things that happened in that movie and I watched it yesterday in preparation for Fast X)
Fast X is a film directed by Louis Leterrier (of Incredible Hulk fame) from a screenplay by Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin, based on a story by Mazeau, Lin, and Zach Dean. It is the sequel to F9, the tenth main installment, and the eleventh installment overall in the Fast Saga (12 if you count Better Luck Tomorrow). It stars Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto alongside a supporting ensemble cast including Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Scott Eastwood, Daniela Melchior, Alan Ritchson, Helen Mirren, Brie Larson, Rita Moreno, Jason Statham, Jason Momoa, and Charlize Theron.
Yeah, this movie is bloated. Runtime aside (it clocks in at 141 minutes), the film is stuffed to the brim with characters. Most movies contain an A plot and a B plot, the B plot usually being something for the characters who don’t have top billing to do. At the crux of the movie, somewhere in the middle of the second act, there are at least four different plots occurring at the same time. Having to balance multiple planes of action at the same time is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Because of the packed nature of the film, characters are put in predicaments that incapacitate them (Letty and Cipher are stuck in a CIA Black Site for most of their screentime) or they just disappear then reappear when the plot calls for them (Brie Larson’s Tess). Speaking of the characters, everyone is just ok. Everyone is given just enough so that the audience can remember that they are there and that’s about it. I think it’s cool that they gave Cipher something to do, considering she doesn’t really do much in the previous two movies. She gets an incredible fight scene early on, it reminded me of Atomic Blonde. The only characters that get any real notes are Dom, Jakob, and Jason Momoa’s villain Dante.
Momoa is probably the MVP in terms of acting and character. He plays Dante, the flamboyant, center of attention who’s out to avenge the death of his father and the loss of his fortune, featured in Fast Five. He is the definition of a scene chewer. Now that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, every time he was on the screen he was out-acting his counterparts. It does start to get a little old at the end, once you realize that his whole schtick is pretty much the Joker to Dom’s Batman. Even still he’s probably the best-acted character in the movie.
Then there’s Jakob, played by John Cena. All I can say is what happened to this character. There isn’t anything wrong with a character being different between films in terms of their characterization but the problem I was having with him is that he was being played in the casual, jokey manner that John Cena seems to play all his characters in. That isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that he was the secondary antagonist of F9 and when we left him in that movie, I felt like he was in a much different place than where we first meet him in this movie. His subplot involves him rescuing Little Brian which isn’t a bad subplot, it gets multiple fight scenes and a few driving scenes but that’s about it. I would’ve preferred if he rescued Little Brian, not because Dom wanted him to, but because Mia wanted him to and he mellows out a bit more throughout their adventure. He doesn’t have to be a stone-faced killer like he was in F9 but he can be a little jaded, as he was at the end of the previous movie. I know two years have passed in-universe but it’s still a strange jump in characterization.
That brings us to Dom. Vin Diesel has made a career off these movies and I can’t be mad at him. If I was in his shoes I would do the exact same thing. Dom in this movie is the same old same old. if you’ve seen at least two of these movies you know how his character is. This movie is different though, something about his character just feels… off. It’s like the character has fully ventured into being a superhero without the movie explicitly stating that he’s the actual Last Son of Krypton. I’m used to everyone doing absolutely mental things in these movies but it seemed like Dom was the only one doing those things this time around and it didn’t feel right.
Overall I enjoyed this movie, I enjoyed it more than I did F9 but I can’t say that I enjoyed it more than Fate of the Furious, there are a few things that was done in that movie that I forgot how much I enjoyed when the movie first came out. Five, Six, and Seven are a golden trilogy of action movies, the impact those three had on the franchise is something that won’t ever be replicated. Eight, Nine, and Ten are ok movies compared to what comes before them. If you enjoy these movies you will like this one but if you’ve grown to dislike them, I would not recommend it. Fast X is currently playing in theaters.
Above and Beyond the Screen 