Movie Review: Fast X

This time around, the latest installment of the Fast and Furious Franchise "Fast X" is not one movie, but 7 sub movies that are all interlaced throughout the 2 1/2 hours with each one standing alone with different parts of the cast. The obvious problem with 7 smaller movies at the same time and cutting to each one of them, is that many of the main characters are separated and this eliminates the chemistry and funny scenes that are some of the best parts of this franchise. This new extreme idea does not take away at all from the expected and once again, incredibly stupid stunts and special effects that defy all logic and laws of physics. Why the Fast and Furious producers and directors feel the need to go so over the top with action scenes like these probably has more to do with creating an exciting movie trailer than any other reason.

As far as idiotic action scenes, there is a giant rolling bomb that destroys city streets, huge stone stairways, and monuments all throughout Rome. The main character Dominic Toretto, played by Vin Diesel, stops the bomb in one of the craziest ways imaginable. There is a scene later in the film with Dominic in a car with his son at the edge of a giant Dam. Once surrounded, as Dominic has done in the past, he just drives the car over the edge and is followed by gigantic explosions and somehow, despite 100% certain death, manages to survive, yet again. Yes of course this is an action movie, but the problem with these movies is making the action scenes so crazy-dumb-make-no-sense that it actually insults the very audience they are trying to attract. There is no reason to go this far with these scenes, but it seems that the goal is to surpass the action of the last movie no matter what.

In this new installment, which is a 2 part movie, due to the 3 extreme cliffhangers at the end, all of the major cast members return with the new addition of the daughter of Mr. Nobody, played by Kurt Russel (who is not in this movie), Tess, played by Brie Larson – who I am surprised took this small part in a movie of this low quality.

Jason Momoa plays Dante, who is the main villain in this film and is the son of another villain from a Fast movie 10 years ago. Dante wants to take his revenge on Dominic and his entire family for killing his father. What makes no sense, is after months of planning, meetings with producers and the director, and millions of dollars spent, Mamoa decided to play this part like he is a Liberace-like gay comedian. This entire crazy-funny and gay personality, in my opinion, was a huge mistake and did not work with this role.

Charlize Theron returns again in her role as Cipher, and her sub-movie with Letty, played by Michelle Rodriguez, makes very little sense, all the way to the end, where they both somehow wind up in Antarctica. This entire screenplay seems to have been written by a stream of consciousness on the fly method, without regard to continuity or connections to any of the other sub-movies.

Cameos include Rita Moreno, who plays some kind of a family matriarch at the beginning of this story, and considering how absurd this movie can be at times, she seemed out of place. Pete Davidson appears later in the film as an owner of a computer store, when the cast is looking for new computer equipment. It is amazing to see how far someone like Davidson has come in his career and his current popularity.

As this almost 2 hours and 30-minute film winds down, into 3 shocking cliffhangers to be resolved in the next movie "Fast X: Part 2", released in 2025, there is an appearance of yet another character in this series, thought to be dead for a long time. This was also done in the last installment, once again insulting the intelligence of the audience. This is because this character was definitely killed in an earlier movie. Enough of this already, once someone is obviously killed, bringing them back to life is just ridiculous.

For those millions of die-hard fans of this movie series, having to wait 2 years to see the resolution of the cliffhangers, will be painful for them, but I can certainly wait. This is mostly because while the special effects are always amazing, the screenplay and just plain stupid action scenes are at times, very hard to sit through without laughing.

Despite a huge 350 million dollar budget and spectacular special effects, for this 10th movie in this highly profitable movie franchise, the Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a low 56%. I agree with this low number, based on the continuing and very unnecessary inane illogical action scenes. This movie is only for die-hard Fast and Furious fans and unfortunate professional movie bloggers like me.