Fast X

The Torretto "Family" is back in a film that Vin Diesel claims is the second or third last of the series, depending on when you ask him.  Fast X had some cleanup to do since F9 made a lot of money but many fans of the series had the same middling reaction to it that I did.  After watching the last several Fast films in the cinema we decided to wait to see the new one on Redbox.  The question I had going into this one was could the series rediscover the balance of providing fun without going too far into implausibility?  

Spoilers below

The nicest thing I can say about Fast X is that it is better than F9.  Justin Lin, who has directed three good Fast films and two bad ones, left the film about a week after production began over story issues and Louis Letterier (who directed The Incredible Hulk and the Transporter films) took over.  Fast X is a mild improvement over F9 because it is has a more memorable villain in Jason Momoa and none of the characters go to space.  But otherwise Fast X is overloaded with characters and too many plot contrivances that keep me from being willing to overlook the unbelievable moments that I might have in earlier films.  For example Fate of the Furious has a scene in which cars literally rain down in New York City.  It is crazy but follows a well edited scene in which Dom takes a secret meeting with Queenie, narrowly avoiding being discovered by Cipher, which gives the film some breathing room.  This film has a moment in which a car literally drives down a dam to avoid an explosion which comes right after Dom's son literally flies from Dante's car to Dom's while both cars are spinning.  

Vin Diesel deserves credit for reuniting his growing casts with each film but he has pulled the trick of turning a villain into a semi-team member in a subsequent film three times now.  I didn't really buy it with Deckard Shaw in Fate of the Furious but Jason Statham's performance was so much fun I went with it.  For Jakob, since he is Dom's brother I can understand it especially since he was not F9's big bad.  But in Fast X Charlize Theron's Cipher also ends up with the team.  Cipher was a terrific villain who executed a woman we cared about in cold blood (unless Diesel decides to resurrect her) and was more than ready to kill Dom's baby.  Fast X tries to have it both ways but not having Dom or Letty trust Cipher for quite awhile but it would be much more effective if Momoa's Dante were the one to team up with her.  Also, while it is satisfying to watch Letty fight Cipher the scene between the two veteran action stars is far too big for it to be believable.  

Rita Moreno, who made such a nice return to prominence in Spielberg's West Side Story (after winning an Oscar as Anita in the original), brings a lot of charm in her brief role as the Torretto matriarch.  However I cannot believe that Dom, who is in his mid fifties, has a grandmother who is still alive.  The film would have made more sense if Moreno had been Dom's aunt.  

Momoa deliberately plays against his own macho Aquaman image with as Dante, the son of Joaquin de Alameda's Reyes from Fast Five.  Dante is both silly but unhinged (the scene in which he talks to two corpses is an original example of this) and Momoa's long wavy hair and overall wild appearance makes him a worthy antagonist.  It is an interesting idea to go back to the series' most popular entry to give their villain a motive but doing so also invites comparison that Fast X cannot really live up to as we just remember how much more entertaining Fast Five was.  The opening sequence suggests Dante was always just off camera during much of the climax to Fast Five and was driving one of the cars Dom took out (Fast Five never showed us the ) and suffered a head injury in the aftermath which killed his father which made him nuts.  This development is both an absurd retcon (especially a moment in which it is edited to suggest Dom sees him clearly) and admittedly a decent starting point for the film since it must be challenge to come up with new villains.  

Brie Larsen plays a character the team calls Little Nobody, the daughter of Kurt Russell's Mr. Nobody from Furious 7 and Fate of the Furious.  Larsen is dependable as always but the character is very thinly written.  As a film fan I enjoy Kurt Russell onscreen but Mr. Nobody is a peripheral character at best and I just shrug my shoulders at the idea that he is some kind of legend made more powerful in his absence a la Don Corleone in The Godfather Part II.  If Nobody is around or not it makes no difference to me.  Also the name is so ridiculous its constant repetition does not serve the film at all.  

Here are some additional thoughts I had about the film overall:

• As improbable as it was I did enjoy a moment in the scene between Cipher and Dante in which he threatens the person she loves the most and she responds that he is looking at her.  Theron is usually more interesting when playing a character who is both selfish and unapologetic about it.  
• If Cipher knows where Dom lives (she goes to his house right after being attacked by Dante and her own men) why has she never tried to kill him there before?
• The sequence in Rome, the only sequence in which the team all works together, has an inventive premise (Dante is trying to blow up the Vatican with a rolling bomb which the team has to stop).  Each team member gets something to do and a highlight is Letty on the motorcycle.  All the main sites in the Eternal City are either driven by or impacted but I disliked seeing the gorgeous Spanish steps damaged by the bomb rolling down it.  Dom's initial solution, using his car to slow it down, visually recalls the scene in Fast Five with the cars dragging the safe, but his ultimate fix (jumping his car into a crane by a bridge which then rotates to know the bomb into the Tiber where it explodes) is a typical over the top Fast solution, which is worsened when Dom somehow ends up back on the road instead of in the river himself.  The car stunt looks fake and the implausibility dilutes a lot of the fun from the scene and leaves the viewer feeling cheated.  Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I presents a far more entertaining chase scene in the same location by putting the characters in a small car.  
• After the Rome sequence the characters are all split up and most of the side stories are unmemorable.  
• Roman and Tej's banter is played out by this point.  When they started fighting I thought it was a ruse at first but it showed they are as sick of each other as I was getting of them.
• Ramsey really has little to do in the story.  
• Dom's trip back to Brazil and his interaction with Elena's sister (played by Daniela Melchior) are the highlights of the film (a scene directly recalls one he had with Elena in Fast Five) and give the story what heart it has.  However Elena was also rudely shoved to the side as a character in Fast & Furious 6 so I am not sure I buy that Dom cares for her as much as he claims to.
• Alan Ritchson, whose history playing Aquaman on Smallville should hint at his ultimate intentions, is big, strong and fairly one note as Aimes.  I had planned on watching Reacher on Amazon Prime but now am not sure it's worth the time based on his lack of presence.
• Jakob has an entertaining side adventure with Little B, who has aged pretty quickly that ultimately redeems his character from the last film.  I expected he would not survive but we'll see for sure in the future.  Since Han, Letty and now Gisele are back anything can happen here.  
• The end of the film goes wrong where Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning: Part I again does something right.  Dead Reckoning is also only the first part of the story but it has a definite end and while there are threads pending it is not a cliffhanger.  Fast X leaves us wondering if Dom, Little B survive an explosion and if Aimes just blew up the others in a plane explosion (the plane conveniently explodes off camera).  I wonder how the marketing for the next Fast film will try to explain it assuming they are all still there, which I fully expect them to be.

I will watch the next film to see how this plays out but I certainly will not waste money seeing it in the cinema.  Insulting your audience by expecting them to believe outrageous things is not a way to keep them engaged.  **