FAST X – THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF A SAGA

A cinematic sleuths review by Miyoba & Yande

Hold onto your seats, because Fast X is one wild ride! The latest installment in the Fast and Furious franchise may not be the best in the series, but it’s a non-stop action packed adventure that will keep you wanting to watch more. With a mix of heart stopping action and thrilling car chases, this movie is a must-see for fans of the franchise and action movie enthusiasts. So, get ready to hit the gas and join the Fast and Furious family on their latest adventure in Fast X.

The pilot of Fast X is more of a compilation of the previous Fast and Furious movies, basically, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family have outsmarted and outrun every adversary in their way over numerous missions and against insurmountable odds. They now have to deal with the worst foe they have ever encountered. A deadly menace that is driven by retaliation emerges from the past to devastate Dom’s world and everyone and everything he loves.

The Fast and Furious franchise is one that does not shy away from flashbacks and Fast X did not disappoint. Its opening scene is from Fast Five, in which Dom and his crew took out a drug kingpin Herman Reyes and decapitated his empire on the bridge in Rio de Janeiro. But there’s a twist Reyes’ son, Dante (Jason Momoa), witnessed it all and that was the beginning of his villain story.

This cannot be a Fast and Furious movie without at least one barbeque scene and we get one in the early minutes of the movie. This time it felt more sentimental cause you see Dom mourning the loved ones his lost and then when the instrumental of see you again start playing, as a viewer you find yourself drifting back to the scene in Furious 7 where Dom says his final goodbye to Brain (Paul Walker) and then they drive in opposite directions. The writers really said we are going to make you cry before we unleash chaos.

Okay that’s enough reminiscing let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of the movie. First things first, Dante was the only thing holding this movie together. I don’t know what Jason Momoa’s thought process was when playing this character but the one thing I’m sure about is he said you are paying me $5 million to play this character and I am going to make it worth every penny. From the get go you can tell that Dante has a few loose screws and he owns it, there’s literally a scene where his giving corpses pedicures, advising them on what shade of nail polish suits them best while drinking mojitos and then proceeds to steal all of Dom and his family’s money, afterwards he just goes like “I’m gonna go wash my hair.” This made me want to watch more scenes of Dante.

On top of that, his whole revenge plot is very understandable, at this point it’s very much established that Dom is really big on family. So Dante said I don’t like many things but the one thing I actually liked you took it away from me so I want to even the playing field and am going to do it in the most diabolical way I know how to.

This time they actually tried to go back to the roots of what the Fast and Furious franchise is supposed to be about. The street car racing scene is one that reminds you of the early installments of franchise, sadly not everyone crossed the finish line alive.

I had so many issues with most of Dom’s conversations; this man was talking as though his always in a movie trailer. At some point I told myself he got used to saying ‘I am groot’ that the man forgot he actually has to say more words to hold a conversation. Vin Diesel voices the character Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy and Groot only says ‘I am groot’ sometimes he throws in a ‘We are groot’ but his vocabulary is limited to 3 words.

One thing I found funny was the actively prevented Dom from saying ‘Family’, everyone else really used the word so much like we were going to forget that Dom has family but this time around Dom barely says the word. I bet Vin Diesel told the writers that he doesn’t want to be another viral meme so they should reduce the amount of times he says family.

Fast X really focused on recycling scenes from previous movies that the lacked in the dialogue aspect of the movie, in some of the scenes someone just breathes and next thing there’s a fist fight, maybe am exaggerating a little bit. I get that some people only understand violence but come on some pleasantries wouldn’t hurt before you punch someone in the face.

Though there’s a dialogue I really loved and this was between Tess (Brie Larson) and Aimes (Alan Ritchson). This happens right after Dante starts putting his revenge plan into motion and in the end it’s just disastrous for Dom and his family. In order to get entail on what really happened Tess goes to Aimes and their conversation lead to this:

“Aimes: Los Angeles, 2001 humble roots, local kids’, street racers who become hijackers, graduated to high-speed smuggling, mobile jail breakers, train robberies. If it could be done in a car, they did it. If it violates the laws of God and gravity, they did it twice

Tess: You write that yourself?

Aimes: That’s their MO, to corrupt law enforcement. Brian O’Conner, Elena Neves, Luke Hobbs. Everyone becomes family. It’s like a cult with cars. Even Tess’s dear old dad

Tess: So we’re all just a barbecue and a beer away from corruption?”

That dialogue is a summary of why I still find myself watching the Fast and Furious franchise. It’s like a cult with cars and it’s really hard to exit a cult.
Fast X really tried with those plot twists, it’s just disappointing that I found them predictable. Like the whole situation of Aimes being on the same side as Dante from the very beginning. Aimes made it very clear that he doesn’t like Dom and his family from the time his character is introduced so it’s not surprising that his actually the one of the bad guys.

While we are still on the subject of plot twists, the Fast and Furious franchise has literally resurrected so many characters that it’s got to a point that you can’t actually mourn for a character. Jakob (John Cena) who is Dom’s brother sacrificed himself to ensure Dom and his son escape, the sad thing is I couldn’t feel sad about his death scene all I said was his definitely coming back unless the writers for the next installment want to prove us wrong, but this man is coming back for a fact.

No canon character in the Fast and Furious franchise actually stays dead. The only people who’ve actually died are Dom’s first wife and Brian O’Conner. For Brian it’s only because Paul Walker died in real life but even then they still didn’t let him die. It was nice to see Gisele (Gal Gadot), she was killed in Fast and Furious 6, and for a moment there they really had me believing she will never return.

Generally Fast X is an okay movie; it definitely had me laughing the whole time. I still don’t know if it was intentional to add so many comedic elements or that was the only logic reaction my brain could come up with because this movie has so many unnecessary scenes. There’s a cameo of Debby Ryan and Josh Dun, I’m still trying to understand the significance of their cameo. The other cameos where good, like the post credit scene of the return of Luke Hobbs (Dwanye ‘the Rock’ Johnson) and Bowie 420 (Pete Davidson) he really contributed to the comedic factor of the movie.

Also the whole getting Han (Sung Kang) high was really unnecessary I’m still wondering why it made the final cut of the movie.

With Fast 9 literally proving to us that anything is possible in the fast and furious universe, these people went to space in a car. I was waiting to see what stunt Fast X was going to pull, sadly they didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, I mean ordinary in line with Fast and Furious logic. Though for a split second they had me thinking that Dom will gain superpowers from the whole bridge escape scene but nope it was just a very detailed scene.

At some point while watching the movie, I told myself this might be one of the closest things we will ever get for a Marvel and DC crossover. So for team Marvel we had Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Groot (Vin Diesel) and Clea (Charlize Theron). Then for team DC we had Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Peacemaker (John Cena), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Black Adam (the Rock). If they just change a few things to the script, it might actually be a decent movie anyway that’s just wishful thinking.

All in all Fast X is an okay movie; at best it’s a good movie. I asked someone’s opinion about the movie and they said “It was surprisingly good, good as in they couldn’t stop watching but as a movie they ran out of drugs otherwise they would have put time travel in there.” I totally agree with that, this movie was definitely high on something. The movie ends with a cliffhanger, looks like I have to wait to see if Dante succeeds in destroying Dom and his family or maybe Dante will become part of the family.