Fast X (2023)
2023
PG-13
142 Minutes
Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal opponent they've eve...
User Review
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The Fast And The Furious simply will not die; it is immortal. We simply can not kill it. That being said, I found myself feeling trepidation, uncertainty and utter dread for the first time while preparing for Fast X; I knew exactly what to expect but something else felt amiss here.
Bloody hell, they finally did it. The fact that F9 didn’t break me but THIS ONE DID is…..astonishing.
One unironic sense of praise I have, off the bat, is Louis Leterrier. Outside heavily dumbing down the ridiculousness that happens on-screen and making the action a LOT more bearable, he tries his damndest to tap into as many of the themes that define this nitro-filled fever dream as humanly possible, and it’s an admirable effort. Also, bless the hearts of the main cast. Again, not the best group of actors in the world but it’s easy to tell how much fun they’re having and their chemistry rubs off some better than others. Unfortunately, they stood NO CHANCE against Jason Momoa’s performance: a truly antagonizing and psychotic feel to his character that oozes charisma and a sadistic persona to boot, he stands out as easily the best villain of the series behind Deckard.
There’s so much and so little to say about the other factors honestly: costumes are fine, I suppose but notwithstanding. It’s usage of the production design, in general, comes across as sterile despite their ‘noble’ attempts at utilizing it the best they can; certain set-pieces play off more as perfunctory rather than motivated and it’s easier to notice now. That being said, the film has a really tight pace that makes use of the two hour runtime, the musical score is overcut and rather generic honestly while the actual soundtrack is decent, the CGI is once again very spotty and every single line of dialogue has the bluster and verve of a WWE scripted promo; sometimes decent, other times cringe, other times unintentionally hilarious.
Everything about the story is every bit of a Saturday morning cartoon as previously; it’s honestly just as mundane, immaterial and pedestrian than what F9 gave us….and it STILL manages to make for a pretty damn good time at the theater. The only difference is the sheen had long since worn off before this point: we go from melodramatic hallmark moments asserting who the good guy is and stating the blatantly obvious….and then suddenly, big action set-pieces that struggle occasionally because the franchise has made use of all its best stunts, so pushing the boundaries of reality have now gradually made the action impressively unimpressive. On top of that, the characters eventually get split up and have their own separate subplots that flip back and forth between subgenres so many times, the tone gets disorienting quickly if you happen to notice. That seems to be the glue that holds a lot of these stories together nowadays: their solution to get around problems is to often create another problem.
The worst part is the action, in general, is not even terrible; frankly, it’s where the vast majority of the comedy comes from nowadays. It’s just the editing is the most abrupt of the series yet, the cinematography, while passable, isn’t any better and despite all that, it lacks innovation, surprises, and are getting weak in visual excitement.
The closest I found to some kind of storytelling here was tied strictly to Dom and his relationship with his son. Giving how they’ve tried to settle down already, it’s an interesting idea they tease early on regarding what it really means for people who live fast to, you know, stop and smell the roses a little bit. Whenever they attempt to actually try and get some sort of story going, it’s immediately drowned out by the conglomerate of enjoyably random white noise.
Never mind the fact they don’t do that great of a job trying to differentiate Momoa from other villains other than making him campy as all hell and with the flashes of self-awareness that garnered a slither of goodwill in the past now becoming trademark, they hardly have to try; it’s begrudgingly overstuffed, there are far too many characters to do the project Justice and all of it just feels weightless until we get to the very end. Unless you’re an Uber die-hard fan of the movies, it’s a maddening conveyor belt of things that you’ll struggle to find a reason to care about regarding anything or anyone and it just never ends!
This is yet another brain-dead action film and absurd soap opera all in one and while, yes, it’s technically less bonkers than F9, its main issue comes from STILL wanting to have its regurgitation cake and eat it again. It’s heart is definitely in the right place but it’s long since passed the point where that heart’s enlarged in the “stressed beyond capacity” sense; I know it’s futile to make sense of the franchise that has GONE TO SPACE but SOMEONE has to draw the line somewhere 😂1 member likes this review.
