Fast X, the tenth installment in the Fast & Furious franchise is now playing in theaters worldwide, and it is performing well at the box office. As of May 26, it has grossed over $400M worldwide, becoming the 7th highest-grossing movie of 2023.
You can read our review of the movie below:
Screenplay
The screenplay was objectively the worst part of the movie. It doesn’t go two minutes without someone saying the words “family”, “the Agency”, or both. There are several moments where the characters just know a guy who specializes in the very things they need. May it be Pete Davidson’s character or the return of Hobbs, everything is just convenient and perfectly laid out for the moment. There are no stakes at hand for any of the characters except Dom’s son.
Although the film does have a few heartfelt moments, they are immediately followed by either an explosion or a car chase. If that is exactly what you are interested in, (I am), the film delivers exactly as it promises. No more, no less.
Vin Diesel delivers a great performance as Dominic Torreto, regurgitating the importance of his family on at least 3 different occasions. Brie Larson felt severely underutilized, and the result was anticlimactic.
Action
I am pleased to say that the film does do one thing very satisfactorily: action. Whether it is Dom diverting a bomb’s path by flying into a construction crane or speeding through the streets of Rome, the camera work and cinematography are worth some serious praise.
The final moments of the film featured Dom flying his car into the Aldeadávila Dam, a truly amazing setpiece that made for a jaw-dropping moment. The action never lets your adrenaline flow stop.
Jason Momoa: Chaotic Energy
Jason Momoa reprises the role of Dante Reyes, son of Hernan Reyes, a drug lord who was the main antagonist of Fast Five. It is revealed that Dante survived the events of the movie, after which he went underground. He reemerges to wage war against those who assisted Dom and ultimately aided in killing his father.
Momoa plays Dante in a very comical fashion and perfectly represents the psychotic intent of the character. The character seemed superficially similar to the Joker. It is perfectly clear that he is going for an androgynous performance: he paints his victims’ corpses’ toenails, sports very saturated, flamboyant outfits, and even talks about “toning down” the masculinity in a scene I don’t even remember the context of.
Dante frames the family for a bomb that detonates in the Tiber River in Rome, Italy, and sends the Agency (for whom the family worked in the past) in pursuit after them.
The character repeatedly uses very inefficient methods to torture Dom by hurting his family, and he repeatedly fails to do so until the end of the movie; where the family apparently crashes in a missile-struck airplane, and Dom and his son are at the bottom of a dam rigged to explode. But the true stakes of the situation are left for us to decide after the sequel to this movie comes out.
Final Thoughts: Family
The only other Fast & Furious movies I have watched are Tokyo Drift and Hobbs & Shaw both of which are practically spinoffs. Although this did make my reference-catching ear a little perturbed, I enjoyed the film a lot and didn’t feel like I was missing out at all.
3 and a half out of 5 stars.
You can watch the official trailer for Fast X below:
