Louis: What makes you so sure?
Isabella: Because I’m the oldest, which means I’m always right.
Louis: No, it doesn’t.
Isabella: It totally does.
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Fast X (2023, dir. Louis Leterrier) - review by Rookie-Critic
Here we are... at the beginning of the end of the road. This, for better and for worse, might be the fastest and most furious of the films to date in the sense that you are being constantly bombarded with cameos, callbacks, crazy action, and cars for the entire 2-1/2 hour runtime. This means that anyone who isn't already familiar with the intricacies of the character relations of the franchise at this point will most assuredly be lost during a good portion of the film. Which isn't necessarily a knock against it, what do you expect from the tenth (eleventh if you count Hobbs & Shaw, which you should) installment in a franchise. We're neck deep and sinking at this point. Chances are if you're still with it this deep into the story, you know what you're getting yourself into and you're in it for the long haul, and I most certainly am. As a new convert into the Fast & Furious cult, I love these things. They're dumb, largely nonsensical, and overly sentimental to a fault, but those are all pieces of this messy web of a puzzle that endear the fans to it, myself included. Fast X is no different, it gives you everything you've come to love about and expect from the franchise, but as far as where it ranks amongst everything, I'd put it more towards the middle of the pack. Yes, it is very fun and I will talk about the things that I liked in a bit, but it also has a lot of issues that are impossible to ignore.
The first, and biggest, detriment to the film is the Justin Lin-shaped hole in the director's chair. Longtime Fast & Furious director Justin Lin (who directed Tokyo Drift, 4, 5, 6, and 9) takes a backseat in this one, opting to just be a co-writer on the film, and the style of the film suffers greatly as a result. This film just looks strange. Obvious and poorly constructed green screen backgrounds are used in places they have no business being in, lines of dialogue have been noticeably dubbed in during post-production, and the entire vibe of the visual style feels very non-Fast & Furious. It just doesn't mesh visually with any of the previous films. Also, and this is a problem I had with the eighth film, too, they never really give a good reason as to why Brian (Paul Walker's character) isn't there. Yes, I understand that Paul Walker is dead in real life, but Brian is 100% still very much alive in-universe, and everything the fans know about who he is as a character knows that he wouldn't be sitting by and allowing this to happen to the people that he loves. In F9, the story of the film allowed a pathway for a very reasonable and believable excuse for his absence, and this film just didn't have it. Fast X also continues the time-honored tradition of this franchise having next to no clue about how to use Mia (Jordana Brewster's character) effectively. She's almost always a part of the top-billed cast, and she's almost always relegated to a glorified cameo appearance. Outside of the first film, 4, 5, and 9 are the only ones that have been able to use Mia effectively (I would like to point out that those are all Lin-directed entries). She's an interesting character, and I'm tired of seeing her get sidelined. All of this on top of the fact the the story of this movie feels a lot like setup for the actual endgame that will happen in the next two films and not like an actual film story in its own right.
However, even with all of that, the movie is still insanely fun, and a lot of this is due to Jason Momoa. The villains in this franchise haven't ever been the strong points of each installment. Most of the time, they're are a template of a stereotypical, hyperbolic bad guy archetype with little personality and next to no motive. Momoa's character, on the other hand, has a motive and more personality than this movie even knows what to do with. He's Marvel's Kingpin mixed with Heath Ledger's Joker à la Fast & Furious and it's a pretty marvelous sight to behold. He injects so much fun and humor into the film that we might have lost otherwise as a result of the central family being split up for the entire film. We get Tyrese's Roman Pierce bringing the comedic relief to his sequences, and in the scenes that focus more on what Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto is up to, Momoa steps in to pick up the slack (not to mention the pieces of the film following John Cena's Jakob Toretto, who fits like a glove into this franchise). On that note, the segmented nature of this film is handled way better than any time this kind of thing has happened in previous installments. We're following three or four storylines at any given moment in the film, and, for me, it never once felt disjointed. We also get some classic Fast & Furious car-action setpieces (including one truly inspired sequence involving a gigantic bomb rolling its way towards the Vatican) that fully deliver on the promise these movies have set up for the fans. It's not without some heavy issues, but I gotta say, there's something about these movies that is just infectious, and even the worst installments have redeeming qualities that keep me coming back for more.
Score: 7/10
Only in theaters.
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