Fast X, review

Fast X

UK release: 19 May 2023

Director: Louis Leterrier

Starring: Vin Diesel, Jason Momoa, Michelle Rodriguez

Review by Sarah Edwards

Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) has two goals: to kill Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), and to make him suffer first. The son of Hernan Reyes, Dante, whom fans might remember from the fifth installment of the franchise,  is cold-blooded, with the skills and resources to destroy everything Dom holds dear. By the time it’s clear just how much of a threat he poses, Dom’s crew is scattered, and a bomb the size of a car is rolling down the streets of Rome towards the Vatican. With Dom’s team branded international terrorists and more vulnerable than ever, what else does Dante have up his sleeve? 

This could make for an interesting premise if Fast X (2023) was at all interested in exploring it further. Instead, its scattered pacing and bloated cast of characters make the next two hours difficult to follow and exhausting to keep up with.

With the crew split across three continents, the film spreads itself too thin trying to keep up with everyone. In addition to Dom’s encounters with Dante, there are flashes of Letty’s (Michelle Rodriguez) escape from an off-the-grid prison, Jakob Toretto’s (John Cena) journey to get Dom’s son to safety, and the rest of the crew’s unfocused adventures in London. 

Progressing all of these storylines simultaneously robs each one of the time it needs to establish context or build any sense of momentum. They simply show up somewhere, fight some unnamed bad guys in helmets, and then it’s on to the next group.

The result is a confusing mess where it becomes increasingly challenging to keep track of where everyone is or how much time has passed. It seems like Dom flies from Europe to South America and back again in the time it takes Letty to climb an elevator shaft.

Lost in this shuffle is any sense of tension between Dominic and Dante. What should be a gripping, cat-and-mouse game is instead reduced to aimless wandering from one anticlimactic stand-off to the next. It seems critical to Dante’s plan that Dom must make difficult choices about who to save and who to sacrifice, but the choices rarely carry any serious weight. The rest of the crew rarely seems to be in any more danger than they were at the start. Instead, Dom’s concerns are mostly focused on a range of completely new characters thrown into danger to set up future films in the series, but that do little to add to the story in this one.

These moments are salvaged by the abundance of charm and charisma Jason Momoa brings to his role as Reyes, even as the character can feel inconsistently written. It’s refreshing to see a villain strike a balance between the forms of masculinity so common in action films with a more fun and expressive androgyny. He brings an energy to the encounters missing from Vin Diesel’s much more toned-down approach to Dom. 

John Cena similarly delivers a stand-out performance as Jakob Toretto. His comedic timing is consistently on point, and his goofy uncle antics are a delightful detour from the more serious tone of Dom’s solo adventures. Less can be said of the rest of the crew’s scenes, which fail to capitalise on the team’s chemistry and are instead dragged down by a shaky subplot about Roman’s desire to be a leader.

Ten films into the franchise, most fans can excuse issues with plot or poor characterisation if the film can still deliver on the action. Unfortunately, the issues with poor pacing and lack of context bleed into what should be Fast X’s most exciting moments. The stakes in any given fight are unclear at best and at worst, completely absent. In Rome, it isn’t until the bomb is well on its way that we get any sense of where it’s going or how long until it blows. Meant to serve as an homage to Fast Five’s iconic scene where Dom and Brian drag a massive vault down the streets of Rio, it only serves to draw attention to the thrill lost in Fast X’s lackluster execution of the concept. 

This isn’t to say Fast X is without its show-stopping moments. Combat scenes are especially smooth and exciting, and aren’t afraid to veer well into the realm of impossibility to create some truly impressive sequences. Watching Dom drag the remnants of two burning helicopters down a highway is equally awe-inspiring if a little over the top.

With an eleventh Fast and Furious film already in the works and a twelfth likely on its way, Fast X is more concerned with setting up these future installments than creating something cohesive out of its own story. While there are enough car chases and explosions to keep devoted fans entertained, more casual viewers are better off skipping this one.