Fast X

Fast and Furious has been one of the most well-known action franchises of the generation and not always for the best of reasons. The series has always relied on a certain level of suspending belief yet, since Fast 7, the franchise has devolved to sacrificing any semblance of a plot or character development for mindless action and trying to top the previous stunt. Fast X is no exception.

After the previous installment turned the Twitter memes into reality and literally had a scene in space, I thought there was no way the movies could get any crazier, yet Vin Diesel once again proved me wrong. Every single action sequence in this movie made absolutely no regard for any human life or logic as the Fast Family continue destroying every major city they possibly can around the globe. The action sequences aren't even particularly fun. There's a difference between entertaining logic-less action, and "screaming at the TV" action. Fast X falls entirely into the latter category. From a wrecking ball structured bomb destroying Vatican City (in literally the first action sequence of the movie) to Vin Diesel driving his iconic Challenger down a dam, Fast X shows its age with poor CGI and so obviously cliche action beats that it really makes me wonder how this movie got cleared by all the scriptwriters, actors, producers, and directors. Did no one question the decisions in this movie? I believe a big reason for this film's action losing its thrill is the fact that the tension of any scene has been removed.

I feel no real sense of dread regarding a character being in any danger of dying both due to a mixture of the Fast franchise constantly bringing characters back and me not caring about anybody to begin with. Why would I care that *insert random character here* mysteriously dies, when I know that they will probably just come back a few movies later. The lack of character development also does not help this problem. Out of the grueling 2hr 21min, there is maybe about 30 minutes where there is no action occurring and they are by far the most boring scenes in this movie. The Fast franchise had long given up on having character arcs or progression for any of the characters in the film, heroes and villains alike. Every character has remained pretty stagnant in thier personality making their decisions incredibly predictable and once againt taking any thrill out of the movie. This makes it all the more frustrating when the "predictable" choice you know the character will make is also potentially the most bone-headed, logic-less, decision ever made in cinema history and yet Vin Diesel and his perfectly bald head makes it anyways. At this point, the franchise just seems like a massive cash grab and unfortunately, it's absolutely working. At the time of this review, Fast X has made about 750 million with a budget of about 325 million, and this constant profit will most likely continue regardless of how many movies Diesel churns out. Reports state that this is movie one of a trilogy, as well as the Rock being set to appear in a spin-off movie, and multiple spin-off series being planned meaning like it or not, the Fast Family is sticking around for quite a bit.

In terms of positives, the only real thing I can say is that Jason Mamoa seems to be the only one in the entire movie who actually enjoys his job. He's easily one of the franchises best villains bringing a Joker-esque manic energy and psychopathy that makes every scene he's in semi-entertaining to watch. Other new-comers such as Brie Larson and Alan Ritchson are by no means bad, they just don't have much to go on. The writing for these characters are very one-dimensional leaving the audience once again very little to be invested in.

What it ultimately comes down to is this movie and subsequent movies are very clearly just a cash grab now for Vin Diesel and the crew and it's working. No matter how many of these movies are churned out, audiences will continue to buy tickets to watch them leaving us in a never-ending cycle of cars, family, and bad writing. While I desperately want these movies to stop existing, I also know I am going to keep seeing them thus forever being a part of the problem.

Star Rating: 2 Dodge Challengers/10