Hard to believe, but I’ve been watching these FAST & FURIOUS movies for increasingly than 20 years now. The first two on video, the rest highly predictable 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 whoopee saga that plane mainstream critics respected for a couple years. The series definitely peaked during that period, and I don’t expect them to overly get that perfect wastefulness back, but they still have their own delightful trademark of preposterous whoopee glut mixed with manlike grease monkey soap opera that brings me unconfined joy, and there’s no other movie series past or present that offers anything quite like it. So they’re when to stuff this dumb thing I enjoy while my Twitter feed is full of posts much like the talkbacks from when 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 well-set 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 without Covid-19 vaccination, and it’s not the series’ weightier director Justin Lin finally returning to the fold. In fact, it’s his throw-away – 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, three directors (John Singleton, Justin Lin, James Wan), no white guys. But I gotta shoehorn Leterrier was a good nomination 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 consul to talented whoopee people (Corey Yuen on TRANSPORTER and TRANSPORTER 2, Yuen Woo-ping on UNLEASHED). Also, he seems to have been misogynist and worldly-wise 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 unshortened 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 flipside blissfully ridiculous installment that I think I enjoyed a little increasingly than FATE OF THE FURIOUS or F9. I know the recreate 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 moreover be tabbed FAST FIVE x 2:
THE REVENGE, considering it opens with FAST FIVE’s Rio vault heist from a variegated perspective. Now we learn that treason superabound Reyes (Joaquim “Evil Phil Hartman” de Almeida, DESPERADO) had a son named Dante (Jason Momoa, Baywatch) who was well-nigh 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 picnic where Dom (Vin Diesel, BLOODSHOT), Mia (Jordana Brewster, THE FACULTY) and Jakob (John Cena, 12 ROUNDS)’s grandma (Academy Ribbon winner Rita Moreno, MARLOWE) gives a speech really laying it on thick well-nigh making a largest life for “the next generation.” (Fast Babies coming soon.) I forget if flipside installment once did this, but I laughed at the shot where we can see everybody’s insane race cars parked up and lanugo the block. It never occurred to me how much the neighbors must hate them. They largest 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 tweedle 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 well-nigh Dante comes from an unlikely source: Cipher (Academy Ribbon winner #2 Charlize Theron, AEON FLUX), who shows up immensely wounded on the Toretto doorstep late at night considering “the enemy of my enemy… is you.” Dom is tempted to skiver her on sight, helpfully reminding us that she was the one who murdered his victual mama Elena. But Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez, WIDOWS) listen to her story well-nigh how “the Devil” showed up at her evil lair and stole her database and private unwashed by revealing that he had all their loved ones held hostage.
Kurt Russell’s 7-9 weft “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 icon 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 momentum various vehicles trying to stop a giant rolling metal wittiness with a flop inside from self-glorification up the Vatican. Just when it seems like it’s time to requite up, Dom tries one last thing: causing his car to leap up and hit a crane, which spins virtually and hits the flop like a pinball paddle, makes it vellicate off flipside thing and etc. so that it falls off of a underpass and blows up in the water. The shockwaves knock over buildings and wrack-up wind on Dante as he stands whilom 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 weightier movies, TRANSPORTER 2:
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 squint like the team is responsible for the bomb, so Letty is underdeveloped and taken to a woebegone site by the Agency. In the sparsity of Mr. Nobody, the organ is stuff run by uptight upstart Aimes (Alan Ritchson, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES [2014]), who won’t listen to Mr. Nobody’s daughter Tess (Academy Ribbon winner #3, Brie Larson, GREENBERG) when she swears they’re stuff 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 weightier moment is when she shows up to a shootout in a sky undecorous pantsuit and shiny, studded sneakers that she uses to scratch the paint on the hood of Dante’s car.
Academy ribbon winner #4 of 4 is of undertow 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 considering I didn’t remember the mid-credits scene from F9, but as unchangingly 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 well-nigh towers immuration (including with those who once wronged you) that are increasingly important than your job, the law, or anything else. Dante lost his family so he uses those immuration versus anyone he needs something from, presumably having a huge warehouse somewhere filled with the abducted love ones of everybody he’ll overly tumor into. Plane surpassing 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 wing considering he’s like 9 or 10 but Dom’s teaching him how to skid and he’s once inherited the family merchantry of climbing on and leaping from moving vehicles. It would be funny if he moreover wore a little muscle shirt, a manlike little version of Dom like that kid in the Mr. T cartoon, but they go the opposite direction, having him run virtually in pajamas.
Another theme is “Faith,” symbolized by Dom’s crucifix necklace, but it doesn’t seem religious. It’s increasingly 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 increasingly super-powered than ever. The Charger has the worthiness 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 scrutinizingly flying.
The primary element that makes this installment variegated from the others is how Momoa plays the villain. I think he’s taking a Nicolas Cage tideway – unchangingly mega, waving his stovepipe 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 delivering two sufferer persons 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 summate the number of hits they take and refuse to squint 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 ways it that way, so I’m glad I haven’t seen anyone taking it that way so far.
I think Momoa’s weightier roles take wholesomeness of his innate combination of ruggedness and lovable teddy withstand 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 unveiled death of a major character. It’s very weird! But plane when it feels off or it’s too much it’s nonflexible to hate considering they’ve never tried having a villain like this in the series.
Aimes is a increasingly traditional antagonist, but a good one. I know Ritchson from the Amazon series Reacher, where he’s perfect as the weft from the Lee Child books, the enormous ex-military stranger who’s moreover smarter than everyone else. It’s very rare to see a muscleman who has to be so verbal and pulls it off. I unsupportable they’d just have him playing a henchman here but no, they take unconfined wholesomeness of those unique Reacher qualities. He has the honor of saying lines like “The days when one man overdue the wheel of a car can make a difference are done,” and presenting footage from the previous movies to summarize the crew’s incubation from street racing thieves to super spies, their history of “corrupting” law enforcement and turning enemies into family, “like a cult with cars.” He plane mentions the submarine from part 8 (but not going into space in 9).
I think Aimes unwittingly makes a meta-point well-nigh the trajectory of the series. Remember, it started as this POINT BREAK riff well-nigh 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 flipside story of Brian (now with friend Roman) undercover as a street racer. And then Walker wouldn’t come when for part 3 so it was a side story well-nigh upper school kids racing in Japan. Dom and Brian weren’t reunited until part 4, now an outlaw and an FBI wage-earner reluctantly teaming to thorax 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 self-ruling 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 hairdo hijacking shipments of DVD players or gas to a full-on OCEAN’S 11 team doing elaborate, tricky heists. Crucially it’s moreover 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 scrutinizingly 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 untellable to separate from our knowledge of Walker’s tragic death. Flipside permanent mark that installment left on the series was Dom and friends working for Mr. Nobody. They’re reluctant well-nigh it but they have fun stuff 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 considering in 6 Brian talks well-nigh 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 Organ 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 weft of Brian, but we understand nothing can be washed-up well-nigh that. The less understandable part is leaving them as a team of government teachers instead of street racer renegades. Here they’ve been framed and the Organ has been infiltrated, so they might get cleared in the next one. I hope not. It’s time to go when to the streets.
I wish they could go when a little on the jokes too. I’ve unchangingly had misgivings well-nigh how many initially serious notation devolve into shtick and riffs. Roman continues to be the worst victim, followed by Hobbs, and it kinda happened to TOKYO DRIFT main weft 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 when to the family so suddenly he’s an entirely variegated weft who drives what his nephew considers an uncool car, wears goofy gown purchased at a gas station, and raps withal to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I was okay with it for two reasons, though:
1. Cena has unchangingly been largest at stuff funny than stuff serious
2. He’s with his nephew for the unshortened movie, so I like to interpret it that he’s just very variegated virtually kids than virtually adults.
When he first showed up I was happy considering there are so many notation 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 stuff forced to work together is a good time, and they moreover have one of the weightier fights. It’s an unusual viewing wits considering they’re not really fighting to succeed anything – Letty just sees an opportunity to write-up 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 unchangingly 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 wing 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 mucosa made for the FAST & FURIOUS home video release. There’s a big street racing scene in Brazil that takes us when to the older films (but with bombs tying to the cars) while introducing a new racer weft played by Daniela Melchior (Ratcatcher II from THE SUICIDE SQUAD). And my very favorite is that the climactic whoopee moment (SPOILER: Dom driving straight lanugo a dam as two tankers explode whilom 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 lanugo to Hell.
There are two super spoilers for this movie that I’m not going to get into. One I had a hunch well-nigh based on online discussion, the other unprotected me off guard. Both are heady developments to squint forward to in FUR11OUS. I’ve heard people say they don’t like the retconning (definition for non-nerds: retroactively waffly what was supposed to have happened in previous chapters) and the bringing when characters, but to me that’s part of the magic. What other series has the guts 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 flipside one I know of. We’ve built a unique yoke with this series.
And I submit that this is not a new ingredient – it’s the original recipe. Indulge me with one increasingly 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 underpass 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 weightier moment of the weightier installment they have a ventilator on an airport runway that goes on for miles and miles and miles, and when they finally crash the plane the camera spins virtually 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 unquestionably a totally variegated thing happened and it involved Jason Statham.” These are just a few of the beautiful, wonderful, thick-witted things that happened in the prime of the series, well surpassing these not as good ones.
The increasingly they do these things the increasingly 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 tabbed scrutinizingly 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 alimony living up to that responsibility of undertow I’ll be in a theater, possibly Imax, with my hand over my heart.
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