Hard to believe, but I’ve been watching these FAST & FURIOUS movies for more than 20 years now. The first two on video, the rest highly anticipated theatrical events. At first they were these goofy lowbrow trendsploitation movies I got a kick out of, but I had to defend their right to exist from the Ain’t It Cool talkbackers. With FAST FIVE they became a hugely popular action saga that even mainstream critics respected for a couple years. The series definitely peaked during that period, and I don’t expect them to ever get that perfect balance back, but they still have their own delightful brand of preposterous action excess mixed with macho grease monkey soap opera that brings me great joy, and there’s no other movie series past or present that offers anything quite like it. So they’re back to being this dumb thing I enjoy while my Twitter feed is full of posts much like the talkbacks from back in the aughts. Why do they still make these, who are these for, Vin Diesel has an ego. Same old shit as time marches on a quarter mile at a time.
FAST X (which we all seem to have agreed to pronounce the same way we pronounce JASON X) doesn’t have as much to live up to as F9 did two years ago. It’s not my return to theaters after Covid-19 vaccination, and it’s not the series’ best director Justin Lin finally returning to the fold. In fact, it’s his departure – somehow Diesel (allegedly) managed to be such a pain in the ass that Lin quit as director. They’d managed four full movies together, but only a week filming this one.
So Louis Leterrier (THE INCREDIBLE HULK) took over with three days notice. Sadly that breaks the series’ unprecedented streak of directors of color; since Rob Cohen’s original it’s been seven sequels, four directors (John Singleton, Justin Lin, James Wan, F. Gary Gray), no white guys. But I gotta admit Leterrier was a good choice considering the circumstances. He’s made some pretty enjoyable movies – sorry world, I liked his CLASH OF THE TITANS remake – and part of his secret is knowing how to delegate to talented action people (Corey Yuen on TRANSPORTER and TRANSPORTER 2, Yuen Woo-ping on UNLEASHED). Also, he seems to have been available and able to be talked into it. That’s not nothing.
The script is credited to Dan Mazeau (WRATH OF THE TITANS) & Lin. It’s weird but true that Lin was collaborating with a guy whose only previous credit is the sequel to a movie by the guy who would later take over as director. Leterrier has said he rewrote the entire script on the plane on the way to the set, whatever that means. His touches, the existing plan by Lin, and the influence of second unit directors Spiro Razatos (MANIAC COP), Olivier Schneider (a stuntman from KISS OF THE DRAGON, THE MUSKETEER and THE TRANSPORTER) and Alexander Witt (SPEED, BLACK HAWK DOWN, NO TIME TO DIE), however they may combine, add up to another blissfully ridiculous chapter that I think I enjoyed a little more than FATE OF THE FURIOUS or F9. I know the charm has worn off for some people, but if you’re like me and you can’t stop smiling and laughing all the way through an adorably ridiculous movie like this, you know what to do.
FAST X could also be called FAST FIVE x 2: THE REVENGE, because it opens with FAST FIVE’s Rio vault heist from a different perspective. Now we learn that crime boss Reyes (Joaquim “Evil Phil Hartman” de Almeida, DESPERADO) had a son named Dante (Jason Momoa, Baywatch) who was about to inherit the family business. He was there when the vault got torn out of the wall and was driving one of the cars chasing them. He lost his dad, his empire, and his mind, and now he’s coming for vengeance.
But first there’s a little peace time. The fam have a barbecue where Dom (Vin Diesel, BLOODSHOT), Mia (Jordana Brewster, THE FACULTY) and Jakob (John Cena, 12 ROUNDS)’s grandma (Academy Award winner Rita Moreno, MARLOWE) gives a speech really laying it on thick about making a better life for “the next generation.” (Fast Babies coming soon.) I forget if another installment already did this, but I laughed at the shot where we can see everybody’s insane race cars parked up and down the block. It never occurred to me how much the neighbors must hate them. They better be bringing everybody leftover potato salad or something.
The family are still working for “The Agency” (fuckin sellouts) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson, ROGUE HOSTAGE) is excited to be leading a mission to steal a computer chip from a truck in Rome. He brings Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, MAX PAYNE) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel, ARMY OF THIEVES) and his plan involves laughing gas and a radio controlled car.
The word about Dante comes from an unlikely source: Cipher (Academy Award winner #2 Charlize Theron, AEON FLUX), who shows up badly wounded on the Toretto doorstep late at night because “the enemy of my enemy… is you.” Dom is tempted to kill her on sight, helpfully reminding us that she was the one who murdered his baby mama Elena. But Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez, WIDOWS) listen to her story about how “the Devil” showed up at her evil lair and stole her database and private army by revealing that he had all their loved ones held hostage.
Kurt Russell’s 7-9 character “Mr. Nobody” is said to be “in the wind,” so his underling Little Nobody (Scott Eastwood, WRATH OF MAN) comes to help, at which point they figure out the mission in Rome is a set up. So the first huge action/disaster set piece involves evil super villain Dante taunting them over the radio as they drive various vehicles trying to stop a giant rolling metal ball with a bomb inside from blowing up the Vatican. Just when it seems like it’s time to give up, Dom tries one last thing: causing his car to leap up and hit a crane, which spins around and hits the bomb like a pinball paddle, makes it bounce off another thing and etc. so that it falls off of a bridge and blows up in the water. The shockwaves knock over buildings and blow wind on Dante as he stands above posed like the Christ the Redeemer statue getting off on it, but they saved the Vatican. That’s pretty good.
The crane thing reminded me of my favorite part of one of Leterrier’s best movies, TRANSPORTER 2:
https://youtu.be/t-v9GZUH0xc
It took him directing this to make me realize that many of the FAST movies really are kind of like the tone of TRANSPORTER 2 inflated to blockbuster size. It really is a good match.
Dante makes it look like the team is responsible for the bomb, so Letty is arrested and taken to a black site by the Agency. In the absence of Mr. Nobody, the agency is being run by uptight upstart Aimes (Alan Ritchson, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES [2014]), who won’t listen to Mr. Nobody’s daughter Tess (Academy Award winner #3, Brie Larson, GREENBERG) when she swears they’re being set up, so she goes rogue to help them.
I like that Tess seems to be trying to outdo Cipher in stylishness and overdressing. I think her best moment is when she shows up to a shootout in a sky blue pantsuit and shiny, studded sneakers that she uses to scratch the paint on the hood of Dante’s car.
Academy award winner #4 of 4 is of course Helen Mirren, returning as Queenie, the mother of Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham, GHOSTS OF MARS). She helps Dom with something, so Dante decides to target her which, in my opinion, demonstrates extremely poor decision-making! I’ve seen some of the Statham pictures so I suspect he’ll come to regret this choice. Shaw’s part in this one is small, and includes a weird joke I didn’t follow because I didn’t remember the mid-credits scene from F9, but as always it’s good to see him.
You will not be surprised to know that one of the themes here is “Family.” The whole series has been about building bonds (including with those who once wronged you) that are more important than your job, the law, or anything else. Dante lost his family so he uses those bonds against anyone he needs something from, presumably having a huge warehouse somewhere filled with the abducted love ones of everybody he’ll ever bump into. Even before that, Dom realizes that having a son (Brian, a.k.a. Little B [Leo Abelo Perry, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2022]) has introduced him to the emotion of fear, and the primary mission of the movie is to protect Little B from Dante.
The kid is a funny addition because he’s like 9 or 10 but Dom’s teaching him how to drift and he’s already inherited the family business of climbing on and leaping from moving vehicles. It would be funny if he also wore a little muscle shirt, a macho little version of Dom like that kid in the Mr. T cartoon, but they go the opposite direction, having him run around in pajamas.
Another theme is “Faith,” symbolized by Dom’s crucifix necklace, but it doesn’t seem religious. It’s more of a new age/self help notion that if you believe in yourself you can do anything. This may be why Dom and his car are more super-powered than ever. The Charger has the ability to flatten other cars by landing on them in the right way, or throw them and ricochet them off things by hitting them at the correct angle. It can’t fly, but it’s like the early Superman who can leap so well it’s almost flying.
The primary element that makes this chapter different from the others is how Momoa plays the villain. I think he’s taking a Nicolas Cage approach – always mega, waving his arms around, occasionally dancing, often wearing a snakeskin jacket, trying to make weird choices in every scene, and say every line in a way you wouldn’t expect. As scripted he’s a sinister mastermind, a Joker or Riddler, and he enters his first present day scene carrying two dead bodies like they’re his luggage. But I think Momoa’s goofing on these movies, trying to subvert the other guys’ hyper-masculinity. In the same series where Diesel, Statham and the Rock supposedly calculate the number of hits they take and refuse to look weak, Momoa gets bloodied, drops to his ass, throws his tooth at Dom and calls him a “butthole.” He wears giant sunglasses and silky pastel outfits, puts his hair up, paints his finger and toe nails. At times he does an effeminate thing that could be interpreted as homophobic, but I don’t think he means it that way, so I’m glad I haven’t seen anyone taking it that way so far.
I think Momoa’s best roles take advantage of his innate combination of ruggedness and lovable teddy bear spirit, so playing a flamboyant pansexual maniac doesn’t come as naturally to him, and I don’t think his mega technique has reached Cage levels yet. But he had me laughing frequently, and has a handful of really funny lines, though often oddly timed – the one I laughed hardest at happens while we’re still processing the apparent death of a major character. It’s very weird! But even when it feels off or it’s too much it’s hard to hate because they’ve never tried having a villain like this in the series.
Aimes is a more traditional antagonist, but a good one. I know Ritchson from the Amazon series Reacher, where he’s perfect as the character from the Lee Child books, the enormous ex-military drifter who’s also smarter than everyone else. It’s very rare to see a muscleman who has to be so verbal and pulls it off. I assumed they’d just have him playing a henchman here but no, they take great advantage of those unique Reacher qualities. He has the honor of saying lines like “The days when one man behind the wheel of a car can make a difference are done,” and presenting footage from the previous movies to summarize the crew’s evolution from street racing thieves to super spies, their history of “corrupting” law enforcement and turning enemies into family, “like a cult with cars.” He even mentions the submarine from part 8 (but not going into space in 9).
I think Aimes accidentally makes a meta-point about the trajectory of the series. Remember, it started as this POINT BREAK riff about Dom, the street racer with the nuclear-level charisma, and Brian, the undercover cop who came to respect him so much he let him go. Since Diesel decided not to do part 2 it became another story of Brian (now with friend Roman) undercover as a street racer. And then Walker wouldn’t come back for part 3 so it was a side story about high school kids racing in Japan. Dom and Brian weren’t reunited until part 4, now an outlaw and an FBI agent reluctantly teaming to bust a drug lord responsible for the death (we’re told) of Letty. At the end of the movie Dom is sentenced to 25 years, so Brian resigns from the FBI and then helps free Dom from the prison bus in the opening of FAST FIVE.
That’s where the series truly got great, and where they leveled up from a small crew hijacking shipments of DVD players or gas to a full-on OCEAN’S 11 team doing elaborate, tricky heists. Crucially it’s also when this thief and cop who respect each other are finally real friends, and both outside the law. They’re honorable but they’re criminals.
FURIOUS 6 is almost magical realist in its depiction of cars, it’s very sincere and un-self-conscious in its emotions, and it still has international fugitives as its heroes. I love it like a brother. FURIOUS SEVEN is very good too, though impossible to separate from our knowledge of Walker’s tragic death. Another permanent mark that chapter left on the series was Dom and friends working for Mr. Nobody. They’re reluctant about it but they have fun being given all the resources they want (mostly cars) and they save the world and get pardoned and what not.
Rumor has it that Mr. Nobody was originally meant to be revealed as Brian’s dad. I believe it because in 6 Brian talks about not knowing who his dad is, and in 7 they ditch Nobody on the side of the road and he disappears for the last part. But the other thing that seems to be missing is the other shoe dropping. Doesn’t this seem like a too-good-to-be-true situation? The Agency has to turn on them, right? No, not in 7, 8 or 9. Now finally they do.
In this trilogy of post-Walker FASTs, obviously we’re missing the character of Brian, but we understand nothing can be done about that. The less understandable part is leaving them as a team of government agents instead of street racer renegades. Here they’ve been framed and the Agency has been infiltrated, so they might get cleared in the next one. I hope not. It’s time to go back to the streets.
I wish they could go back a little on the jokes too. I’ve always had misgivings about how many initially serious characters devolve into shtick and riffs. Roman continues to be the worst victim, followed by Hobbs, and it kinda happened to TOKYO DRIFT main character Sean Boswell and part 7 villain Shaw. But now we have the most rapid and drastic version of it – F9 lead villain Jakob has been welcomed back to the family so suddenly he’s an entirely different character who drives what his nephew considers an uncool car, wears goofy clothes purchased at a gas station, and raps along to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I was okay with it for two reasons, though:
1. Cena has always been better at being funny than being serious
2. He’s with his nephew for the entire movie, so I like to interpret it that he’s just very different around kids than around adults.
When he first showed up I was happy because there are so many characters now that I forgot which ones were gonna be in it. He appears and I think, “Oh yeah, we have him on our team now!” Cipher isn’t officially on our team, but her and Letty being forced to work together is a good time, and they also have one of the best fights. It’s an unusual viewing experience because they’re not really fighting to accomplish anything – Letty just sees an opportunity to beat up someone she hates while they’re both trying to escape captivity. On a story level you gotta root for Letty, the good guy, but on a meta level I’m always rooting for Charlize. This is no ATOMIC BLONDE, but I’m glad they gave her a physical role instead of just threatening them over computer screens. She gets a one-on-one and a one-on-many in addition to her magical hacking skills.
Some touches I appreciated as a long time fan: Han (Sung Kang, BULLET TO THE HEAD) and Dom directly reference Los Bandaleros, the Diesel-directed short film made for the FAST & FURIOUS home video release. There’s a big street racing scene in Brazil that takes us back to the earlier films (but with bombs attached to the cars) while introducing a new racer character played by Daniela Melchior (Ratcatcher II from THE SUICIDE SQUAD). And my very favorite is that the climactic action moment (SPOILER: Dom driving straight down a dam as two tankers explode above him) throws in one of those camera-flies-into-the-hood-and-through-a-CGI-engine shots that were the main visual trademark of the first couple movies. Just like old times. Or kinda like old times, anyway. Drag racing straight down to Hell.
There are two super spoilers for this movie that I’m not going to get into. One I had a hunch about based on online discussion, the other caught me off guard. Both are exciting developments to look forward to in FUR11OUS. I’ve heard people say they don’t like the retconning (definition for non-nerds: retroactively changing what was supposed to have happened in previous chapters) and the bringing back characters, but to me that’s part of the magic. What other series has the audacity to do this type of stuff, to know full well that we know it’s ludicrous, and trust us to have fun with it? Not another one I know of. We’ve built a unique bond with this series.
And I submit that this is not a new ingredient – it’s the original recipe. Indulge me with one more Aimes-style presentation. In 2 there’s a woman in a pink anime car, and a scene where Tej destroys Brian’s car with the “surprise” of opening a bridge during a race, but Brian thinks it’s awesome. In 4 Dom goes to the site of Letty’s supposedly fatal car accident, smells the skidmarks and determines which mechanic customized the car that was involved. In the end credits of 5 they do their first resurrection (Letty). In the best moment of the best installment they have a chase on an airport runway that goes on for miles and miles and miles, and when they finally crash the plane the camera spins around to show that they had finally reached the end just then. Then on the end credits they do their first “you thought this happened in part 3 but actually a totally different thing happened and it involved Jason Statham.” These are just a few of the beautiful, wonderful, asinine things that happened in the prime of the series, well before these not as good ones.
The more they do these things the more silly they will seem, but make no mistake, they are the NOS injections that power the series. There are other movies you can watch that don’t do that kind of stuff – they’re called almost all of the other movies made between 1888 and 2023. If they stopped making all other movies this would be a problem, but until then it is the sacred duty of the FAST & FURIOUS movies to be both fast and furious. And if they keep living up to that responsibility of course I’ll be in a theater, possibly Imax, with my hand over my heart.
additional spoilery notes:
I gotta assume Uncle Jakob switched to his “Smooth Jams” or whatever tape by the time they got to the gas station, because there’s no way he had Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch on a mix tape with the Pharcyde. Let’s have some realism here Hollywood.
I like that for some reason Jacob has an old friend flight attendant who slyly helps him evade attackers and eject from a commercial flight. It turns out the actress is Paul Walker’s daughter Meadow.
Wasn’t that funny during the Cipher vs. Letty fight when Cipher suddenly typed something into a touch screen and caused a robot claw to swing across the room and shoot a laser at Letty? Hell of a hacker.
Wasn’t it also funny how they were using those giant metallic letters to tell us what different countries all the scenes take place in and all the sudden we get ANTARCTICA? Great joke.
Since they retconned Han’s death two different times (so that Jason Statham and Kurt Russell could be there) and now the vault chase (so Jason Momoa could be there) plus, it seems, the death of a certain character, it seems very possible 11 will give us far-fetched new information about who was on that endless runway from FURIOUS 6. Can’t wait.
Writing this review made me realize that the main villain in the last movie should be a long time neighbor of the Toretto house, who’s had to put up with their shit for decades, maybe lost a loved one from shrapnel when the house blew up. They could show a bunch of the events of previous films from the perspective of the neighbors’ yard. Think about it, guys. They believe in family but do they believe in being neighborly?
May 24th, 2023 at 3:33 pm
I had a blast with this one. It doesn’t quite recapture the feeling of constant escalation from peak episodes 5 – 8 but it is a welcome course correction after the sluggish and uninspired ninth installment.
While the level of spectacle has more or less plateaued, the serialization has compounded exponentially through 20 years of farfetched plotting into a multi generation ourorobos of resurrections and reveals that rivals late-run ANGEL for complexity and unlikeliness. This is either delightful or rage-inducing, depending on how seriously you took all this delirious gibberish in the first place. Like, if you ever thought street-racing was legitimately cool and not just a vestigial limb the series had to shed before it reached its final form, you will hate this movie. These people aren’t street racers anymore. They’re demi-gods from a comic book universe where the internal combustion engine grants superpowers. I can see how, if you actually live that fast and furious life for real for real, this would be a slap in the face. For the rest of us who always looked at these things as overblow pump, this is just the natural evolution.
I mean, we’re on our third hero back from the grave here. Pretty sure Uncle Ben is gonna show up in Part 11.
Side note: Can somebody tell me why FATE isn’t better regarded? To me it’s one of the better ones. Great, imaginative set-pieces that break new ground, an amazing villain, a solid plot hook, a couple ridiculous revelations…what’s not to love?