'Fast X' Review: Vin Diesel's gravity-defying action, shoddy plot is a dish re-heated and served again
Spoilers for 'Fast X'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: It’s hard to find a moment in ‘Fast X’ where the characters are fast with their words and not with their cars. If the dialogue comes in, it’s only to remind the audience about Dominic Toretto’s play by Vin Diesel (aka Dom), his love for his ever-growing family, and his ability to turn around catastrophic events leading to the destruction of cities. ‘Fast X’ is an old ride repackaged into a new fair and anyone visiting this fair with their family, will recognize it and remember the thrill that it once gave them.
The film offers an excess of eye-popping action, truck somersaults, a bomb being dragged on the streets of Rome, Roman’s ability to make a mess of things, and Dom budging to save the day. But what started as an amateur street racing flick turned into one of Hollywood’s greatest franchise export. However, we’ve seen cars jumping towers in Dubai, we’ve seen them in space, and there’s hardly any area left on the planet where Dom and his team have not caused mayhem. We must remember that no matter how fast Dom, Letty, Roman, Ramsey, and Tej get, there’s always someone furious to take them down. In ‘Fast X', it’s the metrosexual Dante Reyes played by Jason Momoa, probably the only graceful character in a film devoid of expressions.
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Dom is an old dog with no new tricks
Dom now has a son named Brian who eventually is taken away by the chirpy Dante Reyes. Flowing in his quirky avatar while donning colorful clothes, Dante wants to make Dom suffer instead of killing him. “You wanna control the world, I just wanna punish it,” says Dante to Cipher (Charlize Theron) when he steals her team away. Dante is a villain long forgotten. His objective is to avenge his father’s Herman Reyes death who Dom and company killed in Rio De Janeiro when they took out an army of goons and their cars with a vault.
Roman is brought to Rome for a fake CIA mission where Dante unleashes the rolling bomb to destroy Vatican City. Dom intervenes and manages to save the day but Letty is captured by the authorities while helping. Next is what any Fast movie has shown us in the past. Dom takes the wheel and the help of Tess, the daughter of Mr Nobody who believes in Dom’s innocence to get ahold of God’s Eye before Dante finds it. This takes him back to Rio where he races Dante, meets Elena’s sister Isabel and is captured by Aimes, the new leader of Mr Nobody’s agency who does not hold Dom in high regard.
However, when Dante gets ahold of Dom’s son, he is forced to show all the stunts and tricks that he has up his sleeve. And unfortunately, we’ve all seen them before. Although, Aimes who extended an olive branch double crosses Dom and shows his true loyalty to Dante. Dom and Brian are stranded looking for help.
Filled with stars that refuse to shine
The 'Fast & Furious' franchise is one of the most widely accepted movie series across the world. In ‘Fast X,’ John Cena plays Dom’s brother and helps in transporting Brian to a safe house, Helen Mirren is Queenie who pats Dom, Charlize Theron is the cyberterrorist who helps in breaking Letty out and Brie Larson, playing Mr Nobody’s daughter and aiding Dom in his pursuits. Even the presence of three Academy Award-winning actresses is limited and fails to make an impact. The stars enter and exit as they please and are often flattered by Dom’s family commentary.
'Fast X’ is a noisy addition to a series of already loud movies. The film leaves us on a high but it will be incredibly fanciful for us to ask the director Louis Letrrier to help us sustain this particular high.