fast x christian movie review

Reviewed by: Alexander Malsan CONTRIBUTOR

Family and friends outsmart, out-nerve and outdrive their foes

Enemy fueled by blood revenge

Brazilian drug kingpin

Discovering that one’s own 8-year-old son is the ultimate target your enemy’s vengeance

FILM VIOLENCE —How does viewing violence in movies affect families? Answer

“The end of the road begins”

D ominic Teretto (aka “Dom”) has grown accustomed to family life. I mean, come on, he and Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ) have a beautiful son, a large extended family, and live in a nice home on the outskirts of L.A., what more could he possibly want? His adventuring days, he figures, are coming to an end.

Roman ( Tyrese Gibson ) receives a tip from the Agency to steal a computer chip during its transit in Rome. Since it seems like a simple mission, it doesn’t require the whole team, so Dom ( Vin Diesel ) and Letty decide to hang back while the rest of the team go over.

It’s not long before a not so welcome visitor pops up at Dom’s door, Cipher ( Charlize Theron ). She’s scratched, bruised and warns Dom that there is a new threat on the horizon named Dante ( Jason Momoa ), one that is targeting Dom, on a mission to ensure to slowly destroy Dom, his family, his reputation and everything he loves dear. Cipher goes on to explain that Dante has a very personal vendetta against Dom and lives without rules or morals. Dom suddenly comes to realize that the mission in Rome is a trap, and he and Letty race to Rome to go save the team when they come upon their new threat, Dante.

To sum up this threat properly, as Dom would put it: “In a world where there is no code, no one is safe. Truer words have never been spoken by Dom. Let’s just hope for Dom and the team’s sake that he’s wrong…

To the first timer, or perhaps someone new to the whole “Fast and Furious” franchise, one might look from the outside and wonder, “Why have there been 10 films (and one spinoff) to the Fast franchise?” It’s beating a dead horse isn’t it? Indeed, the Fast Franchise is notorious for being one of the longest running film franchises to date, and perhaps a franchise that has far overstayed its welcome in some viewers’ eyes. I won’t get into this argument in length again, as I already did this in the previous review for Fast 9 .

I will state, however, that one might argue “Fast X” brings a sense of vigor and rejuvenation to what was a very stale and stagnant franchise. Here me out. Over the past few films, it’s been about the secret agent work, the romance, the side stories; anything BUT the racing, which was EXACTLY what the original “ Fast and Furious ” film was about! The racing! In “Fast X” however, the racing becomes integral to the rest of the story (you have to look close enough though), which is a breath of fresh air; yet there is still a balance between those who appreciate the drama/romance and those who are there for the action/racing.

Contrary to what the critics are stating, I don’t find that the actors themselves have lost their heart for the franchise. I found many endearing and passionate performances throughout, though perhaps Vin Diesel might have shown some moments of fatigue through some of his dialog. The most terrifying, yet engaging performance, is Jason Momoa’s performance as Dante. His character is sadistic and horrifying—both in subtle and not so subtle ways, and Jason knows this fully well, playing with these characteristics throughout in a spine-chilling (and sometimes downright shocking) manner.

However, what I do find troubling with this latest chapter is the foul language, the increased amount of sexualized content (including sexualized females), and the violence for the film has certainly increased. It’s troubling, quite honestly, because while I understand that the film is trying to go out with a bang with the final three chapters (yes “Fast X” is being divided into THREE parts), there simply is no reason to increase the amount and extent of vulgar, distasteful content just to fill the seats. Your fans will be faithful till the final credits roll.

Content for Concern

VIOLENCE: There is a TON of violence in “Fast X,” so much so that listing it all would be as long as a book, and as such I won’t list everything. Toward the beginning of the film some cars smash a wall and steal a vault. This vault is attached to the cars and is seen being dragged around town destroying everything in its path (and I do mean everything); it even sends vehicles with people in them over a bridge into the water, including police vehicles, killing a character. A character is killed in a flashback (in fact a couple are in a few flashbacks).

Dante’s henchmen are seen taking guard’s families hostage via live footage threatening to kill them unless the guards leave another villain and follow him. There are multiple car chases and explosions. A scene with an armored truck smashing cars. Trucks are seen flipping over and exploding. A runaway bomb is shown causing destruction throughout the city of Rome.

There’s an extended chase scene. In one incredible scene, explosions are seen throughout Rome leaving destruction everywhere. Guards are seen trying to kidnap a woman and a young child (they are unsuccessful) and the guards are killed. A car detonates with someone inside and another detonates. Glass is thrown inside someone’s eyes. Characters are shot and killed. Characters die in a massive explosion. There is a massive car chase. A plane is shot down with people inside and we watch it crash into a mountain. A car explodes after driving down a dam. We see an explosion next to two characters occur before the camera cutaways (we don’t know what happens).

Guards are gassed. Dante talks to two rotting corpses about his thoughts and plans (guards he killed). A scientist is gassed.

VULGARITY: A** (6), S*cks (1), Son of a b*tch (1), Sh*t (13), B*stard (1), “Shut the front door” (a cover for something very obvious, “Black Bezos” and an off-color comment about a character’s death.

PROFANITY: G*d-d*mn (1), G*d-d*mnit (1), OMG (1), H*ly Sh*t (2, 1 cut off), d*mn (2), d*mnit (2),amd h*ll (10).

SEXUAL CONTENT: Dom and Lenny share a tender moment in bed together, almost engaging in intercourse but come short due to a conversation. There is a discussion about different sexual positions.

NUDITY: Letty is seen in PJs and a T-shirt. Females are seen in crop-tops and very sensual clothing at a drag-racing event and other events. There is some sexualized dancing in the film. A guy, half-naked, thought to be dead, walks out of a body bag.

ALCOHOL: Characters are seen drinking at a family gathering, a drag-racing event and at various other points throughout the film.

DRUGS: Someone takes a small LSD trip by acciden.t

Dom says he is all about honor and about being honorable amongst everything. This includes putting himself above everyone and everything for his family and his extended family.

What does honor mean for Christians? Is it about we ourselves being honored by our peers? Is it self-gratification? No, it is about our walk and how we live in service to God and for others. Honor is about glorifying the Father by our witness, by what we say and by what we do to and for others. For Christians, the Bible is clear that this also includes those who God has put in authority over us: when we honor them, we also honor God. This includes our parents, our church elders, the authorities and the elected officials (whether we like them or not).

Regarding our parents it states:

Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. — Exodus 20:12

Regarding authority it states:

“Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes , pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.” — Romans 13:7

Regarding the Church Elders:

“The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching”. — 1 Timothy 5:17

In Psalms with regards to honoring God it states the following:

“You who fear the Lord , praise him! All you descendants of Jacob , honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel !” — Psalm 22:23

John recorded the following statement by Jesus Christ about our service to God …

“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” — John 12:26

Closing Thoughts

The end of the road truly has begun. It’s not just a tagline for “Fast X.” The minute I saw the Universal logo appear I knew this had been 22 years in the making and what a journey it has been, and it’s still not over yet (that’s by no means a spoiler by the way).

“Fast X” has elicited a colossal amount of conflicting thoughts in me. On one hand “Fast X” is a nice return to the franchise’s roots. On the other hand, the violence is the heaviest the franchise has had in its 11 films, not to mention there are some not so subtle jabs at Christians (particularly Catholicism), some sexualized content and language to contend with.

I’m sorry to say that I cannot recommend this film for Christians, as there is too much questionable content to ignore. It’s definitely NOT recommended for teens or children by any means. Viewer discretion is advised.

Violence: Very Heavy
Vulgar/Crude language: Moderately Heavy
Drugs/Alcohol: Moderately Heavy
Profane language: Moderate
Nudity: Moderate
Sex: Moderate
Occult: None
Wokeism: None

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers .

PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.

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Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Movie Review: ‘Fast X’

NEW YORK (OSV News) – As its title indicates, “Fast X” (Universal) is the 10th direct installment of the “Fast & Furious” car-racing franchise that first put the pedal to the metal back in 2001. So by now, the characteristic ingredients of the series’ recipe should be familiar.

On the one hand, they include references to the need for a very vaguely defined version of faith as well as religious imagery that might be characterized as Catholic-lite. There’s also much rhetoric about the bonds that unite its self-constituted family of skilled drivers. Yet offsetting these congenial – if inconsequential – details, as usual, is a high quotient of nasty mayhem.

This time out, the clan’s patriarch, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), goes up against Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), the scion of a Brazilian drug-dealing dynasty. As those paying close attention will recall, Dante’s dad, Hernán (Joaquim de Almeida), tangled with Dom and his crew back in 2011’s “Fast Five” – with fatal results. Needless to say, Dante is not exactly the forgiving type.

Loopy but resourceful, Dante doesn’t necessarily want to kill Dom. Instead he aims to make him suffer. So he targets those closest to Dom, including his brother, Jakob (John Cena), his wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and his young son, Brian (Leo Abelo Perry).

In fact, Dante is so ingenious that, early on in the proceedings, he somehow gets hold of a neutron bomb with which he threatens Rome in general and the Vatican in particular. The sight of this device rolling through the streets of the Eternal City is an apt reminder that any resemblance to reality in director Louis Leterrier’s glossy adventure is purely accidental.

Thus the fact that the gang – which also includes aspiring leader Roman (Tyrese Gibson), tech whiz Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and gifted hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) – continues to show a reckless disregard for the welfare of pursuing police and innocent pedestrians need not be taken very seriously.

In lieu of applying moral scrutiny, those grown moviegoers for whom this extension of the saga is appropriate can relax, munch their popcorn and laugh at the often overheated, occasionally risible dialogue (scripted by Justin Lin and Dan Mazeau). As for those who can’t get enough of Dom and his pals, a cliffhanger ending points to outing 11.

The film contains frequent bloodless but sometimes harsh violence, gruesome images, a scene of marital sensuality, a few uses of profanity, about a half-dozen milder oaths, considerable crude and crass language and an obscene gesture. The OSV News classification is A-III — adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 — parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure , Crime , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

May 19, 2023
Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto; Tyrese Gibson as Roman; Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz; Ludacris as Tej; Sung Kang as Han; Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey; Jason Momoa as Dante; John Cena as Jakob; Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto; Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw; Rita Moreno as Abuela Toretto; Helen Mirren as Queenie; Brie Larson as Tess; Charlize Theron as Cipher; Alan Ritchson as Aimes; Leo Abelo Perry as Little Brian; Luis Da Silva Jr. as Diogo; Scott Eastwood as Little Nobody; Daniela Melchior as Isabel

Home Release Date

June 9, 2023
Louis Leterrier

Distributor

Universal Pictures

Movie Review

Dominic Toretto is one lucky guy.

He’s driven cars out of flying airplanes. He’s driven cars through skyscrapers. (Not through the lobbies of skyscrapers. We’re talking about vaulting through the air 50 stories up.) He’s driven cars that pull 10-ton safes straight out of walls, then has used said safes as square bowling balls to knock other cars off the road.

Perhaps, given all the explosions and engine noises he’s dealt with the last 22 years, Dom’s luckiest break (brake?) of all is that his eardrums are still intact.

But the mechanic/street racer/carjacker/international spy’s luck-tank may be running out of gas. Dom has made some enemies over time. And after a career built on breaking both the laws of man and physics, someone wants to break him —one piece at a time.

That man is Dante Reyes, son of the late drug kingpin Hernan Reyes. Dante watched as Dom and his friend, Brian O’Conner, swiped said 10-ton safe from his pops, after which Dom used it to slingshot his own car into Hernan’s vehicle. (Who knew that safes could be so mobile and useful?) And while Dante was conspicuously absent from the event as chronicled in Fast 5 , don’t tell Dante he wasn’t there. Because he’ll take offense and kill your whole family.

That’s kind of Dante’s style. If someone wrongs him? Threaten that someone’s family. If Dante wants someone to work for him? Why, he’ll threaten his family. If someone kills Dante’s father? Ooooh, yeah, that’s a threatenin’.

Dante is rich enough—and insane enough—to make good on those threats against Dom’s family. And if you’re familiar with the Fast & Furious movies at all, you know Dom’s all about family.

He’s married these days, to fellow street racer Letty Ortiz. He’s got a kid, too. Brian—Little B., they call him—is about 10 years old and just now learning how to drift. And Dom’s siblings, Jakob and Mia are as close as close can be.

But Dom considers his crew family, too. Roman, Tej, Han, Ramsey … they’re as connected as a crankshaft and timing chain, as tight with each other as pistons and O-rings. When you burn as much rubber together as these folks do, you burn a little of their love into your soul, too.

Yep, Dom’s got a big family. And Dante hopes to destroy that family, bit by bit. It’s not enough for Dom to die. No, his father taught Dante that their enemies must suffer . So while Dom can make cars fly and safes swing and the laws of gravity itself bend to his whim, Dante believes that he’s more than a match for Mr. Toretto.

Dom’s luck might be on its last fumes.

Positive Elements

As you’d expect, you hear a lot about family in Fast X , and that familial angle leans particularly hard in the direction of Dom and his son, Little B.

Dom does his best to pass on everything he knows to his child. He brags that Little B. will be better than him one day: “Each generation better than the last,” he says. “That’s fatherhood.”

And he takes fatherhood very seriously. Dom prides himself on always keeping his promises to his son—and he promises (somewhat redundantly?) that he’ll never break one. When someone asks him why he’s still driving and working on cars with carburetors in them instead of faster, “better” fuel-injected vehicles, Dom explains that the carburetors teach Little B to listen—something that, in Dom’s estimation, people do far too little of. And, of course, he’ll risk his life habitually to save the life of his boy.

“I only want to protect the people I love,” Dom says. That covers plenty of people we meet here, and the street runs both ways. Plenty of folks risk their lives (and sometimes give them) to save their compatriots. Others push against unfair directives aimed at Dom’s team, both out of loyalty and a sense of fair play. And despite the outlandish levels of collateral damage we see here—mainly to cars and buildings—Dom and his pals care about the innocents imperiled by the events of this movie, and they often do everything they can to minimize unnecessary casualties. (At other times, such collateral damage feels like a bit of an afterthought, but hey. This is a Fast & Furious movie.)

Spiritual Elements

Dom and others make several references to faith during the film, often connecting that faith to the crucifix that Dom wears around his neck. These sincere-but-superficial references to faith go little farther, but it clearly implies that Dom is not just a Christian, but one who relies on God in any number of impossible situations. “Nothing is impossible,” he reminds his son. “You just have to have faith.”

We also hear other, less spiritual references to faith and religion.

Dante’s name may be designed to point viewers to the Italian author Dante. He’s famous for his Divine Comedy , of course, which takes readers on a tour of hell, purgatory and heaven—with the first book, Inferno , being the best known. That’s where the concept of the nine circles of hell comes from, and you could argue that the movie’s makers are suggesting that Dante is dragging Dom through his own nine circles.

Dante also wryly suggests that Dom is some sort of saint—reminding him that to be a saint, one must either perform miracles or die a martyr. Dante also tries to blow up the Vatican, though he blames the choice on his unwilling henchmen. (“OK, I’ll do it,” Dante says, feigning reluctance. “But you guys are going to hell.”) When Dom saves the Vatican from the bomb, Dante mentions his heroism later. “Who does that?” he says, referencing saving the holy city. “The pope? God?”

Cipher, another ongoing villainess in the Fast & Furious franchise, reluctantly warns Dom about Dante after she has a run-in with the latter. “I met the devil tonight,” she tells Dom. “Honestly, I always thought it was me, so it was kind of disappointing.”

We see churches (some of which have been damaged by explosions) and crucifixes. A bit of technology is referred to as “God’s eye.” There’s a suggestion that someone may be helping bring people together beyond the grave.

Sexual Content

A scene in Rio de Janeiro features plenty of dancing women in tight, skimpy outfits. The camera seems to focus especially on barely clad posteriors and the like.

Dom and Letty spend some time on their bed, engaging in gently suggestive talk. (Dom asks if Little B.’s in bed and marvels that Letty gets more beautiful with each day.) He squeezes her thigh, but the scene goes no farther. Other women can wear somewhat revealing garb. Ramsay, a female hacker for Dom’s team, renews an acquaintance with an old flame.

While Dante’s sexual preferences aren’t dealt with here, actor Jason Momoa (famous for his role as Aquaman ) intentionally plays with the character’s sexuality. “He’s very sadistic and androgynous, and he’s a bit of a peacock,” he told Variety . “He’s got a lot of issues, this guy.”

Violent Content

Holy Toledo, we could fill up the entire internet with this section.

It’s not that the violence here is gory or even particularly bloody. But if you’ve seen a Fast & Furious film, you can take that and goose it with a little nitrous oxide for this installment. The plot may feature more explosions than words. As such, we’ll not detail every conflagration here, but we will give you a little overview of what to expect.

The opening set piece features a giant bomb literally rolling through the streets of Rome. It smashes cars (moving and not), crashes through a bus, destroys countless bits of property and catches fire. Dom helpfully crashes his own car into restaurant awnings, thus protecting diners from the blaze. The bomb goes off, but not as had been planned: Had it done what Dante wanted it to do, it would’ve leveled Rome’s famous seven hills down to “two-and-a-half.” Other, smaller explosives send various vehicles flying and exploding. But despite the incredible destruction the bomb leaves in its wake (not to mention that of the folks chasing it), we learn later that, improbably, no one died.

That is what this movie would like us to believe: Even though dozens—perhaps hundreds—of vehicles are smashed, mashed and completely obliterated, the movie’s junkyards are far busier than its hospitals.

People do die, however. Some are killed in fiery explosions. Others are shot or stabbed or sliced, and at least one appears to suffer a broken neck. Another is impaled by a bit of elevator machinery.

We see the corpses of two such victims, their faces disfigured by what looks like packing tape as someone paints their toenails. Both have bulging eyes, and a fly lands grotesquely on one eyeball.

Characters fight frenetically in several scenes—leaving each other bloody and bruised. Many people get shot; some survive, others do not. One woman stabs another in the shoulder. People fall down from a couple of stories up. Two characters nearly drown. Someone loses a tooth. Planes explode. Cars explode. Buildings explode. Restraint explodes.

Crude or Profane Language

When Little B. nearly says the s-word during one scene, his Uncle Jakob tells him that that word is only allowed for “song lyrics and stubbed toes.”

Later he amends that statement to include “cannon cars,” and the film itself makes plenty of other exceptions as well. The s-word is used at least 13 times (not to mention the two times that Little B almost says it). We hear other profanities as well, including “a–,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused five times, four of which also involve the word “d–n.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Characters drink beer. A covert equipment dealer also sells “fun muffins.” Han eats one and begins to hallucinate. We know that Dante’s father was a notorious drug lord. Liquor flows at a party. Vodka is used as fuel. When someone suggests using bottles of wine as well, he’s told that just won’t work.

Other Negative Elements

This probably won’t surprise you, but people drive recklessly here. We hear about Dom’s crew’s checkered, sometimes felonious past (complete with clips from previous movies).

Given the Fast & Furious series’ emphasis on cars, it seems appropriate that most of its best messages would fit on a bumper sticker.

“You got no honor,” Dom tells Dante at one point. “Without honor, you got no family. Without family, you got nothing.”

Fast X is filled with similar aphorisms, embracing the values of family and friendship, faith and sacrifice. Those messages are nice, and sometimes even praiseworthy.

But, of course, encouraging its viewers to be better people isn’t Fast X ’s primary goal. This is all about giving its audience the adrenaline-fueled experience they’ve come to expect.

Naturally, Plugged In has come to expect the issues that go along with said experience. The violence and mayhem here are unremitting. People get hurt and sometimes die. The film sneezes out explosions as if it had some wicked seasonal allergies.

But while Dom trumpets the value of honor, let’s not lose sight of how many laws are broken in pursuit of Dom’s honorable goals. Or how many law enforcement officers have their patrol cars smashed and various bones broken.

If those elements went AWOL in Fast & Furious , of course, it wouldn’t be a Fast & Furious film. Those are necessary ingredients in this high-octane dish. The swearing? Well, this frenzied feast could easily throttle back on the spicy language.

For fans of the franchise, Fast X is an entertaining, somewhat frustrating addition to the canon. The series is beginning a long curtain call. So this installment features plenty of cliffhangers to ensure fans will be back for the next two chapters.

But while the storyline features a few surprises (which we’ve not spoiled here, hopefully), the content concerns are no surprise at all.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Fast X (Christian Movie Review)

Verdict: A series that has gotten more mileage than anyone could have expected is spinning its wheels in a tenth entry that pushes the limits of its simplistic premise.

About The Movie

The Fast and Furious franchise is like that used car you bought cheaply in hopes of getting a few good miles out of it, but find yourself still driving fifteen years later. Starting in 2001 as a simplistic film about fast cars, the series continues to race down the road two decades later, now in its tenth entry. While it should be commended for its achievements, Fast X suggests that the finish line is—or, at least, should be —not far off.

Let me say that I have an unapologetic love for European heavy metal in which the musicians dress in battle armor and sing about dragons. You like what you like, and there’s no shame in that. Obviously, a lot of people get their engines firing with these movies, and that’s great. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people, and Fast X is an embodiment of many of the reasons why. Despite some thrills and wholesome character dynamics, Fast X is mostly a silly, bloated mess.

Let’s start with some positives. The car chases are occasionally exciting, even as they become increasingly outlandish in an attempt to stay fresh. Jason Momoa has garnered praise for his role as the film’s villain. While there are aspects of his character that may make him less appealing to Christian audiences (see below), he is entertaining and brings needed energy to his scenes. Once again, there is also a wholesome theme of family, with Van Diesel and other characters dispensing snappy proverbs and uplifting wisdom.

Now, the negatives. The film is clearly self-aware of its silliness, but it frequently veers over the solid yellow line into the lane of “parody.” It is difficult to feel invested in the high stakes the film is trying to establish when so many of the scenes seem like an SNL sketch of a Fast and Furious movie.

Perhaps a bigger issue is that the movie has so many undeveloped characters and subplots. New characters pop up every few scenes (many of them being old characters from earlier in the series), and the plot quickly becomes repetitious (heroes find Momoa, they banter, they fight/race and gain the upper hand, Momoa reveals some secret plan to foil them, rinse and repeat x5).

The main cast is split into four different groups and parallel subplots, but only the Van Diesel “A-plot” has any real significance for this film, while the others merely wander toward a rendezvous point without ever arriving. The movie is nearly 2.5 hours and feels like it’s spinning its wheels for most of the runtime. Then it jarringly ends in the middle of the climax. Yes, a movie that already felt like one hour of plot stretched into a 2+ hour film will be bloated even further with a Part Two. A silly story about over-the-top car racing is inexplicably striving for the epic scale of films like Dune , and the overreach leaves Part One lacking.

In the end, I suspect that ten films in, most people already know what to expect. Fans of the franchise will likely enjoy it, as it feels like a “Greatest Hits” album. Yet, I suspect that many who have been along for the ride may start feeling some fatigue. That used car may have accrued more miles than expected, but nothing lasts forever, and eventually we need to just let go, keep the fond memories, and move on.

For Consideration

Language: There is plenty of profanity scattered throughout, including “s—,” “bulls—,” “d—,” G— d—.” I did not hear an F-bomb—a rarity for a PG-13 film these days— although many of the characters speak in gravelly mumbles, so I may have missed one.

Violence: There is plenty of action and violence, although most of it isn’t shown. Characters die in explosions or presumably die as cars are totaled. Some characters are bloodied during brawls or gun fights. The most aggressive instance of violence involves two corpses that have been positioned like dolls at a tea party by Momoa’s character, with bulging eyes and smiles taped in place (a fly eventually lands on one of the lifeless eyes). It’s a darkly gruesome scene at odds with the rest of the film’s tone.

Sexuality: One scene set at a drag race features many characters dancing and gyrating in tight, revealing outfits. There are several short but gratuitous close-ups of female buttocks and bare midriffs as they dance and twerk at the screen. Also, although Jason Momoa’s character’s sexuality is never directly addressed, it is heavily implied that he is gay (or at least falls outside of traditional gender distinctions). In an interview, Momoa described the character as “androgynous and a bit of a peacock.” His flamboyance becomes the defining feature of his character.

Engage The Film

Religious motifs and language play a role throughout the film. The conflict between Dominic (Van Diesel) and Dante (Jason Momoa) is framed as an almost biblical holy war between good and evil. Dante is referred to as “the devil.” The name Dante itself may also be a symbolic connection to hell. An early part of his evil masterplan involves an attempt to blow up the Vatican, which prompts him to tell his henchmen that for their (unwilling) compliance, they’re “going to hell.” In contrast, Dominic is established as a symbolic Christ figure. He carries a cherished crucifix necklace and makes several declarations about the importance of faith. The film repeatedly establishes that he is driven “to save everyone,” and Dante lectures him about the self-sacrificial price of becoming a “saint.”

While Dominic is presented as a metaphorical Christ figure, the character seems to possess a faith in some other higher power. Yet his faith never probes much deeper than inspirational platitudes: “Nothing is impossible. You just have to have faith.” Although, for Dominic, it is never clear what—if anything—the actual subject of that faith is. There is much talk of faith and belief, but no mention of God. At times, his faith is more humanistic, a general sense of faith in “goodness” or people.

Even so, there is something endearing about the film’s handling of an almost childlike faith. His crucifix necklace becomes a central image in the movie. His wife (played by Michelle Rodriguez) tells him, while focusing on the crucifix, “You know what you miss if you keep looking through the rearview mirror? Eternity.” Thus, there is a sense that these characters do believe in some higher power or authority in the world.

Masculinity

Masculinity has always been a component of the Fast and Furious movies (for better or worse), and it is again evident in Fast X . The film both affirms it and attempts to recontextualize it. Dominic’s son wears a shirt with lettering on it, and the camera often frames the scene to isolate the first word, which says “protect.” This framing underscores that what really matters to Dominic is fatherhood and protecting his family. On the other hand, Fast X also deconstructs traditional masculinity. Jason Momoa’s character, while painting the toenails of two dead henchmen (yes, it’s weird), tells them that the bright color “helps tone down the masculinity, which we can all agree is needed right now.” The statement works as a sort of meta commentary. Of course, Momoa’s character is an unhinged psychopath, so he is perhaps not the best spokesperson for that message. Therefore, John Cena (who feels like he’s acting in a completely different film), serves as the “good guy” equivalent, presented as a macho-looking male who is nevertheless sensitive and gentle.

A Quiet Place (Movie Review)

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Captain Marvel (Movie Review)

"This Time It’s Really Personal"

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Villain deceives and frames the good guys while he seeks revenge.

More Detail:

FAST X is a direct sequel to the FAST AND FURIOUS movie FAST FIVE, wherein the son of the Brazilian drug lord killed in FAST FIVE hatches an elaborate revenge plot against Dom and his friends and family, to make them suffer for what they did to his father. FAST X contains some new impressive action sequences, increases the personal stakes in the franchise by having the villain target the hero’s young son, and has overt references to faith and Jesus, but the amount of foul language is still slightly excessive, so extreme caution is advised.

The movie opens with a flashback to 10 years ago when Dom and his friends fought with a drug lord, Hernan Reyes, in Rio de Janeiro. The drug lord had killed some DEA agents, as well as agents from the Diplomatic Security Service Agency. So, Dom and his friends teamed up with two officers from “the Agency” to take $100 million in illicit money from Reyes that he placed in a large vault. Ten years later, the drug lord’s son, Dante Reyes, hatches an elaborate scheme to take revenge on Dom and his friends and family for his father’s death.

Cut to present day in Los Angeles. Dom and his friends and family are having some family time with Dom’s grandmother. The Agency calls Dom’s friends, Roman, Tej and Han, to travel to Rome to stop a powerful computer chip from getting into the wrong hands. While they’re away, Dom and his wife, Letty, get a visit from the escaped female cyberterrorist Cipher, who’s been seriously wounded by Dante. She tells them Dante tried to kill her and is after his friends in Rome.

Dom and Letty travel to Rome to warn their friends while Dom’s sister, Mia, takes care of Dom’s young son, Brian. They discover that the armored truck supposedly carrying the computer chip is actually carrying a bomb. With Dom in a fast car and Letty riding a fast motorcycle, they and the team try to stop the bomb from exploding in the center of Vatican City. Using a jamming device, they manage to steer the bomb into the nearby Tiber River, but the huge shock wave causes some damage.

However, the authorities capture Letty and accuse her, Dom and their friends of being the ones behind Dante’s terrorist attack. They send Letty to an unknown black site for interrogation. Sadly, Dom’s friend at the Agency, “Mr. Nobody,” is still missing, and the new man in charge, Ames, thinks it’s high time the Agency end its association with Dom’s team. So, Dom and his friends have to evade the authorities while they figure out a way to get Letty out of prison and stop Dante from killing them all.

Meanwhile, Dom’s brother, Jakob, arrives in Los Angeles and takes over their sister, Mia’s, duties protecting Dom’s son, Brian. Dom’s son is named after his friend, Brian, Mia’s husband, and Mia leaves to be with her husband, who’s trying to protect their own two children, who also will probably be targeted by Dante and his men.

How can Dom protect his son from the wrath of this mad avenger?

The transformation of the FAST & FURIOUS movies into a tentpole franchise about a team of fast-driving heroes battling super criminals began with FAST FIVE. As a direct sequel to that movie, FAST X not only doubles the mathematical number of the title, it also doubles down on the action. For example, in FAST FIVE, Dom uses his car to drag around a large vault containing the villain’s money. So, in FAST X, the villain’s son forces Dom to chase down and divert a large metal ball containing a bomb. The action sequence in Rome with the bomb is one of the most spectacular, entertaining sequences in the whole franchise.

As usual, the new FAST & FURIOUS movie promotes family, and friends are seen as part of the family. The movie also promotes sacrifice and honor. This time out, though, faith is linked overtly to the cherished cross necklaces that Dom and his brother, Jakob, received from their father. In the movie, Dom and Jakob pass down that symbolically Christocentric faith down to Dom’s son, Brian.

In contrast to the two brothers, the movie depicts the villain as an agent of chaos. Jason Momoa plays the villain as a sadistic, androgynous madman. As such, the character offers a well-deserved critique of the transgender subculture that’s waging a culture war today against Nature and Nature’s God. In fact, the villain makes a great contrast to the honorable masculinity and faith projected by Vin Diesel, the heroic icon behind the FAST & FURIOUS movies that’s made the movies so popular. MOVIEGUIDE® wonders if leftist critics will catch this apparent critique of modern-day attacks on traditional, biblical distinctions between male and female.

FAST X has significantly less foul language than recent FAST & FURIOUS movies, but it’s still slightly excessive and contains one “f” word and three strong profanities joining about 20 “s” and “h” obscenities. So, MOVIEGUIDE® still advises extreme caution.

FAST X ends on a cliffhanger, which leads to a sequel in 2025 that may be the second part of a trilogy (details are still sketchy).

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Tired fights, crashes, explosions in first of two-parter.

Fast X Movie Poster: Main actors' faces surround Vin Diesel's face in the center of the poster, a racetrack with four sports cars below

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Consistently for the franchise, the theme here is

It's hard to consider the main characters role mod

Dom (Vin Diesel, who describes himself as "of ambi

Tons of over-the-top action violence, destruction.

Two characters kiss and caress each other. Women o

Sporadic uses of "s--t," "bulls--t," "goddamn," "b

Bottles of Corona beer. Characters play a Hot Whee

Social drinking: beers in a bar and at a barbecue.

Positive Messages

Consistently for the franchise, the theme here is "family" -- although now the main goal is to protect your family from constant threats, rather than loving, enjoying, or appreciating them. And while there's definitely teamwork in play, much of it involves excessive violence without many consequences.

Positive Role Models

It's hard to consider the main characters role models, given the sheer, consequence-free destruction they cause, but they do risk their lives to save the world and protect their loved ones and stand up against impossible odds. And there's a lot of teamwork.

Diverse Representations

Dom (Vin Diesel, who describes himself as "of ambiguous ethnicity") is the clear leader. Other key cast members include Jason Momoa, who's Native Hawaiian, Native American, and Irish; Michelle Rodriguez, who's Dominican and Puerto Rican; Nathalie Emmanuel, who's of Dominican and Saint Lucian descent; Sung Kang, who's Korean; Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson, who are both Black; Daniela Melchior, who's Portuguese; and Rita Moreno, who's Puerto Rican. Women are smart and self-sufficient, but at least some of them are also objectified.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Tons of over-the-top action violence, destruction. Guns and shooting. Car crashes. Huge runaway bomb (on fire for a while). Missiles. Explosions. Characters die (off-screen). Fighting, martial arts. Characters slammed against hard surfaces. Stabbing. Some blood shown: scratches, bullet wounds, etc. Villain stabs a man, licks the blood from the blade. Eye-gouging. Villain "hangs out" with and talks to two corpses, dead bodies whose eyes and mouths have been propped open with tape. Characters crash through glass windows; character throws a handful of glass into another's face.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two characters kiss and caress each other. Women objectified: The camera leers at women's bottoms and legs as they dance. Villain paws at a young woman and licks her face. Sex-related dialogue ("the carpet matches the drapes").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sporadic uses of "s--t," "bulls--t," "goddamn," "bastard," "son of a bitch," "butthole," "oh my God," "damn." A young boy starts to say "shi-" twice but stops or is stopped.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Bottles of Corona beer. Characters play a Hot Wheels video game. Part of an extensive entertainment franchise.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Social drinking: beers in a bar and at a barbecue. A character eats a "fun muffin" and experiences brief LSD-like effects, which quickly go away.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Fast X is the 10th official entry in the Fast and Furious franchise (not counting Hobbs & Shaw ), as well as the first half of a two-parter (it ends on a cliffhanger). It doesn't fully satisfy, but there are still enough wild stunts to keep fans eager to spend time with Dom ( Vin Diesel ) and his found family. Violence is typical for the series, with nonstop over-the-top, cartoonish action mayhem. Expect guns and shooting, fighting, kicking, slamming, stabbing, car crashes, explosions, a runaway bomb, and more. Characters seemingly die (off-screen). The villain ( Jason Momoa ) stabs someone and licks the blood from his blade and also talks to two corpses he has propped up in chairs, with their mouths and eyes taped open. Sporadic strong language includes "s--t," "goddamn," "bastard," "bitch," etc. Two characters kiss and caress each other, and -- even though some of the movie's female characters are self-sufficient and smart -- there's objectification of women's bottoms and legs during a race. Adults drink beer socially, and a character eats a muffin that causes a brief LSD-like effect. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (3)
Kids say (9)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Pure Exellence is All I have To Say

Another great installment to one of the most well-known franchises, what's the story.

In FAST X, a new villain, Dante ( Jason Momoa ), emerges. He's seeking revenge on Dom ( Vin Diesel ) and everyone Dom loves because Dante blames Dom for the death of his father, Reyes, in Fast Five . Roman ( Tyrese Gibson ), Tej ( Ludacris ), Ramsey ( Nathalie Emmanuel ), and Han ( Sung Kang ) are called to go to Rome to steal a powerful computer chip, but the job is actually a trap set up by Dante. After a huge bomb is detonated, the team is made to look like terrorists, with Dom as their leader. They lose their protection from The Agency, and their bank account, too. Meanwhile, Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ) is arrested and winds up in a secret prison, while Dom's brother, Jakob ( John Cena ), rushes Dom and Letty's son ( Leo Abelo Perry ) to a safe place. Now off the grid, the team must try to reunite, even as the sociopathic Dante seems to anticipate their every step.

Is It Any Good?

The 10th official movie in this wildly popular franchise -- the first of a two-parter -- has the same, now somewhat tired formula: travel, stunts, fights, explosions, crashes, "family" talk, repeat. In Fast X (the marketing team missed a chance to play with the phrase "Fast-Ten your seatbelt!"), the oft-repeated "family is everything" theme is now mostly about protecting your family and how much it hurts to lose loved ones (even though most of the characters who were once thought dead are actually alive). The stunts are bigger, of course, but they still seem derivative of past set pieces. And Momoa's Dante acts almost exactly like Batman's foe the Joker, dancing, giggling, wearing flouncy, clownish outfits, spouting endless one-liners, and behaving ghoulishly; it's all pretty shopworn. (Cena, on the other hand, offers some of the movie's warmest, funniest moments, playing the "cool uncle" in charge of protecting his nephew.)

While the movie occasionally, slyly makes fun of itself, that's not enough to break it free from its slavish devotion to the franchise's hit recipe. And after more than two hours, Fast X ends on a cliffhanger! Still, it's all so exhausting that even that may make you yearn not for more, but rather for a true and proper ending to this decades-long story.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Fast X 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it thrilling or shocking? Are there any consequences? Why does that matter?

How does this movie continue with the series' theme of family? How is this one similar to those that have come before it? How is it different?

How are women portrayed in the film? Did you notice any objectification? Agency? What messages does the movie's portrayal of its female characters send about women?

Do you consider any of the characters role models ? How can they be heroes if they're destroying millions of dollars' worth of property?

Movie Details

In theaters : May 19, 2023
On DVD or streaming : August 8, 2023
Cast : Vin Diesel , Jason Momoa , John Cena , Michelle Rodriguez , Tyrese Gibson
Director : Louis Leterrier
Inclusion Information : Multiracial actors, Indigenous actors, Polynesian/Pacific Islander actors, Female actors, Latino actors, Black actors, Asian writers
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Action/Adventure
Topics : Cars and Trucks
Run time : 141 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material
Last updated : January 15, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Has the Fast & Furious franchise earned a victory lap? That’s the key question behind an appraisal of “Fast X,” a film that brazenly plays like a Greatest Hits collection from a hit artist. Not only does it directly link to the massive, franchise-turning “ Fast Five ” in its narrative, but it constantly recalls other films in this series either through direct mention or action beats designed to recall similar moments in movies like “ Fast & Furious 6 ,” “ Furious 7 ,” and “ The Fate of the Furious .” The script by Dan Mazeau and "Fast Five" director Justin Lin (who left the film after creative differences and whose absence is felt in terms of action choreography) is like a snake eating its own tail, often playing like a parody of the franchise more than a new entry that cruises on its own four wheels. Even as it’s spinning through enjoyably goofy action set pieces, most of them enlivened greatly by a fun performance from Jason Momoa , there’s a desperate familiarity to all of “Fast X” that makes it even more like reheated leftovers than it has before. This is reportedly the start of a trilogy that will close the series. Let’s hope they come up with at least one fresh idea in the next two flicks.

Maybe it’s the leaden way in which director Louis Leterrier treats these beloved characters, but the opening scenes of “Fast X” are among the worst in all ten films, a cavalcade of conversations about family, legacy, and other FF tropes. It’s one thing for a character like Dom Toretto ( Vin Diesel ) to preach the importance of family, but it’s another with notes of Charlie Puth playing over gauzy shots of him looking at press stills of Paul Walker . There was an opportunity here to give us “Old Man Dom”—he is 56, after all—but it’s as if Diesel and his team have no idea what that looks like other than to make their tough guy a little wistful. There’s an odd construction to these early scenes that use the oft-parodied trope of Dom saying “family” as a constant whipping post. They diminish what these films were at their best (installments five through seven) by reducing Toretto and his gang to their most obvious qualities. No one expects great character depth at this point, but do we need so many scenes of Dom grunting "family" and looking worried when he sees his son ‘Little B’ ( Leo Abelo Perry )?

“Fast X” improves greatly when Momoa’s Dante Reyes begins his plan to torture Dom and his furious family. Roman ( Tyrese Gibson ), Tej (Ludacris), and Ramsey ( Nathalie Emmanuel ) head off to Rome on a mission, but it’s a trap designed by Reyes, the son of Hernan Reyes, who was killed when Dom and company rolled a safe through Rio in “Fast Five.” Dante says repeatedly that he doesn’t want to kill Dom; he wants him to suffer. That apparently entails an elaborate scheme to frame the gang as terrorists after a bomb explodes in the Italian capital. Following the construction of these films, at least since Vin and The Rock broke up, it’s just a way to divide the crew. Roman, Tej, Ramsey, and Han ( Sung Kang ) flee to London, where they run into Shaw ( Jason Statham ), of course. Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ) ends up captured, and only Mr. Nobody’s daughter Tess ( Brie Larson ) and Cipher ( Charlize Theron ) can get her out. And that crowded synopsis doesn’t even include John Cena , Jordana Brewster , Daniela Melchior , Helen Mirren , Rita Moreno , or Alan Ritchson . It’s a crowded street race of a blockbuster.

And yet all of these famous faces are given so little to do. The Roman/Tej banter has never felt more tired; Moreno & Mirren each get one “supporting Dom” scene that sounds like A.I. wrote it; Cena gets trapped with Perry on an awkwardly conceived and executed road trip; only Theron and Rodriguez get to have any real fun in their subplot, fighting it out in one of the film’s best combat scenes. For the most part, “Fast X” is the Dom & Dante Show, and the film is at its most effective when it bounces Diesel & Momoa’s very different screen personas off each other. Diesel seems more stoic than ever while Momoa plays to the back row, going for flamboyant psychotic with every scene. He’s like a giant child in a superhero’s body, sticking out his tongue and gleefully hopping into chaos with a “Here we go!”

“Fast X” opens with a repurposing of one of the most famous scenes in the franchise from “Fast Five,” only inserting a de-aged Momoa into the action that fans remember. It’s almost as if that inciting idea became the creative force behind the entire film. Someone listed the best action scenes on a whiteboard and then asked how the energy of Momoa’s Dante could shift them. Sometimes it works. A drag race scene in Rio captures that more grounded energy from when the series was actually about people driving fast instead of defying physics. There’s a plane dropping a car again and harpoons with wires on the end. Even when the goofy action is working, it’s hard to shake the sense that all of “Fast X” is an echo of something you’ve seen before, and often done better with a director who understands stunt work and action geography better than the mediocre Leterrier. It doesn’t help that “Fast X” often looks poorly rendered in CGI terms, with actors more obviously against green-screen backgrounds than before. It reduces the stakes when we're clearly watching something that’s more visual effects than stunt work.

All of this “rock band encore with new pyrotechnics” approach becomes even less forgivable because of where “Fast X” lands. Or rather doesn’t. Without spoiling, Diesel has revealed that this is the start of a franchise-ending trilogy, and that information probably leaked pre-premiere to soften the blow of a blockbuster with no ending. I’m talking “ Avengers: Infinity War ” level climax here. Characters are left presumed dead, in jeopardy, and still divided. This movie's race down memory lane goes arguably nowhere, forcing fans to wait for satisfaction. It makes “Fast X” into less of a victory lap than a loud, expensive revving of engines that haven’t even crossed the starting line. It just adds to the sense that this isn’t so much about family or fun as it is finances.

In theaters tomorrow, May 18 th .

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Fast X (2023)

Rated PG-13

142 minutes

Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto

Michelle Rodriguez as Letty Ortiz

Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce

Ludacris as Tej Parker

Jason Momoa as Dante Reyes

Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey

Jordana Brewster as Mia Toretto

John Cena as Jakob Toretto

Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw

Sung Kang as Han Lue

Alan Ritchson as Agent Aimes

Daniela Melchior as Isabel

Scott Eastwood as Little Nobody

Helen Mirren as Magdalene 'Queenie' Shaw

Charlize Theron as Cipher

Brie Larson as Tess

Rita Moreno as Abuelita Toretto

Louis Leterrier

Writer (characters)

Gary Scott Thompson

Writer (story by)

Cinematographer.

Stephen F. Windon
Kelly Matsumoto
Dylan Highsmith
Brian Tyler

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As irredeemably silly as it is satisfyingly self-aware, Fast X should rev the engines of longtime fans while leaving many newcomers in neutral. Read critic reviews

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If you like your action fast and furious, you'll have fun with Fast X . Read audience reviews

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Fast x videos, fast x photos.

Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal opponent they've ever faced: A terrifying threat emerging from the shadows of the past who's fueled by blood revenge, and who is determined to shatter this family and destroy everything--and everyone--that Dom loves, forever.

Rating: PG-13 (Intense Sequences of Violence|Action|Language|Some Suggestive Material)

Genre: Action, Adventure

Original Language: English

Director: Louis Leterrier

Producer: Neal H. Moritz , Vin Diesel , Justin Lin , Jeff Kirschenbaum , Samantha Vincent

Writer: Justin Lin , Dan Mazeau

Release Date (Theaters): May 19, 2023 wide

Release Date (Streaming): Jun 9, 2023

Box Office (Gross USA): $573.9M

Runtime: 2h 21m

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Production Co: Universal Studios, Perfect Storm Entertainment, China Film Co., Ltd., Original Film, One Race Films, Roth/Kirschenbaum Films

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: Digital 2.39:1

View the collection: The Fast and the Furious

Cast & Crew

Dominic Toretto

Michelle Rodriguez

Tyrese Gibson

Jason Momoa

Nathalie Emmanuel

Jordana Brewster

Jason Statham

Alan Ritchson

Daniela Melchior

Scott Eastwood

Little Nobody

Helen Mirren

Charlize Theron

Brie Larson

Rita Moreno

Michael Rooker

Louis Leterrier

Screenwriter

Neal H. Moritz

Jeff Kirschenbaum

Samantha Vincent

Joseph Caracciolo Jr.

Executive Producer

Chris Morgan

Amanda Lewis

Mark Bomback

Stephen F. Windon

Cinematographer

Dylan Highsmith

Film Editing

Kelly Matsumoto

Corbin Mehl

Laura Yanovich

Brian Tyler

Original Music

Production Design

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‘fast x’ review: jason momoa makes a memorable villain in an action-stuffed franchise installment that’s for fans only.

Vin Diesel headlines a huge cast of new and familiar faces in this 10th film in the hugely successful, car-driven franchise, directed by Louis Leterrier.

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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Jason Momoa is Dante in FAST X, directed by Louis Leterrier

The Fast and Furious movies may all be about fast cars, but the franchise has gotten so congested it’s a wonder they’re able to break the speed limit.

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‘Fast X’ Review: Massive ‘Fast & Furious’ Endgame Explodes Into View with an Outrageous New Villain

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Justin Lin may no longer be in the driver’s seat of the “Fast & Furious” franchise, but his blockbuster fingerprints are all over “ Fast X .” The tenth — and most outrageous installment yet — in the ongoing fast-moving franchise delivers on its promise of high-octane thrills while very clearly setting-up a finale to the massive series, entering every living player from its past into the race. Though Lin’s abrupt departure put the fate of the franchise in jeopardy , French director Louis Leterrier has a solid command of explosive and heart-pumping action scenes to take it for spin.

Following the mantra of go ginormous or go home, “Fast X” rallies its many disparate characters against a shared enemy. (Never mind that some of the more forgettable ones would have been better left alone.) Operating on the adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” this installment brings previous rivals together to stop a demonic psychopath who will stop at nothing to teach Dom the painful lesson that he can’t save everyone.

It must be gospel in Hollywood that every leading man reveres and studies Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning Joker performance, proven out by Jason Momoa’s outrageously flamboyant take on the aggrieved villain Dante. Often laughing maniacally at his own evil genius, Dante drives a purple car, and sports silk pants and purple nails, because: “It tones down the masculinity, which we all need these days.” This winking nod at shifting norms might be less complicated to enjoy if it wasn’t said while giving pedicures to a group of corpses. Instead, Universal is engaging in the oldest trick in the book, using flamboyance (read: queerness) to signal psychopathic supervillain. Pitted against the raging paternalism of Dom Toretto’s singular guiding purpose to protect his family at all costs, the moral edict is crystal clear.

Now 12 years old and able to sustain his own B-plot, Brian gets his own mini road movie while on the lam with Uncle Jakob (John Cena). Introduced as the tepid villain of “F9,” Dom’s long lost brother fits much more easily into the family as the good guy he was always meant to be. Tasked with keeping Brian safe, he and the kid set out on a charming little side adventure that offers a sweet diversion from the flashier antics. Cue adorable hijinks surrounding the nostalgic magic of mix tapes and lessons in swearing.

The same can’t be said for the other members of the extended family, though they certainly start things off with a bang. Running point on an operation in his namesake city Rome (a confusing choice), Roman (Tyrese Gibson) heads up the dream team of longtime favorites Tej (Ludacris), Han (Sun Kang), and recently introduced hacktivist Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel). But the for-hire job ends up being a trap set by Dante in order to lure Dom to come to their rescue. When a truck of what they think is computer chips ends up carrying a massive bomb, suddenly a simple heist turns into a world-saving mission.

Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez, smooth as ever on her signature motorcycle) arrive just in time to avert literal fall of Rome, starting the movie off with an epic Italian chase scene that looks like the “Bourne” films on steroids. Though they manage to avert catastrophe by a hair — and with no casualties! — Dante’s plan to implicate them in a terrorist attack on Rome works, and Dom and his family are suddenly personae non grata at the CIA. Once Roman and crew go into hiding in London, their meager action languishes under the pressure of being the comic relief, as well as having to run into old friends (Jason Statham’s Shaw) and new (Pete Davidson?!).

With Dante’s fixation on proving to Dom that family isn’t forever, motivated by his back story, it’s only natural that the climactic battle end in an epic chase for Brian’s survival. Dom has to make some sacrifices along the way, but not before yet again landing a race car from a moving plane, and driving full speed down the side of a Hoover-sized dam. The action delivers, but the film ‘s third act suffers from an excess of set-ups, cameos, and minor deaths played up as major losses. After all, they have (at least) two more to go.

Universal Pictures will release “Fast X” in theaters on Friday, May 19.

‘Fast X’ review: Jason Momoa’s big bad revs up the franchise engine

Clever cameos and a delicious new villain mean this is the best F&F movie for years

W here do you take a series when you’re 10 films in and you’ve already driven a car into space? The mad beauty of the Fast franchise is that it can pretty much go anywhere, even when it’s been everywhere. If we can believe it though, the supercar saga is finally running out of road, with this the first of a mammoth two-part finale.

It only takes a few minutes for the action to rev up. Within a few scenes we’re watching a plot to blow up The Pope with a giant comedy bomb that rolls through Rome like a boulder. Throw in a gold Lamborghini that’s so shiny it blinds people; a pop-up glider that’s powered by whiskey miniatures; and a scene where Pete Davidson feeds Sung Kang an acid-laced muffin, and we’re firmly back where we left off last time when everyone flew back from the moon in time for a BBQ.

You can still play a dangerous drinking game by taking a shot every time Vin Diesel says “it’s all about family” (It’s not, of course, it’s all about cars), but the plot this time really does manage to involve everyone’s brother, mother and long-lost uncle.

Opening with a flashback to the best bit of the best film in the franchise so far, we watch the Rio heist from 2011’s Fast Five from a different angle – this time seeing that dastardly baddie Hernan Reyes also had a dastardly son called Dante (Jason Momoa). Spending 10 years plotting vengeance on the Fast family for stealing his dad’s money, Dante now buys an army of tanks, sports cars and military jets to try and blow everyone up in beautiful locations.

The last film topped up the cast list with John Cena, Puerto Rican rapper Ozuna and Cardi B . This time we also get Momoa, Rita Moreno, Daniela Melchior and Brie Larson. And that’s on top of the massive roster of big names that are already part of the family – including some that have technically died already (who’s counting?). The credits alone go some way to explain how this is one of the most expensive films ever made, but throw in a few hundred exploding cars and $340million seems like a steal.

Director Louis Leterrier ( The Transporter , Now You See Me ) replaces Justin Lin behind the wheel without letting up on the pedal, but the real draw here is Momoa. Looking like he’s having more fun than anyone ever has at their job, Momoa’s evil peacock is the best thing in the series so far – singing and dancing his way through all the cartoon mayhem in a pair of pink hair ribbons. The franchise has always been deeply homoerotic, but it’s never been this openly, joyfully camp – adding the one extra sundae topping that no one even knew they were missing.

When Momoa isn’t on screen and stuff isn’t exploding, the daft dialogue almost sinks the film into parody. Sure, no one’s ever watched a Fast film for the talking, but so much time spent between set-pieces means we only really get half of a film a here – the big final cliffhanger stopping just as it’s getting going.

One last-minute cameo makes no sense, and is hilarious, followed by a mid-credit cameo that makes plenty of sense and is even funnier – lining up a 2025 encore to sink all encores. Has Fast 11 got anywhere left to go? Of course not. But that’s not going to stop it flooring it all the way there anyway.

Director: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Vin Diesel, Jason Momoa, Charlize Theron
Release date: May 19 (in cinemas)
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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fast X’ on Peacock, in Which Jason Momoa Makes a Floundering Franchise Even More Annoying

Where to stream:, vin diesel says he’s moving forward with final ‘fast and furious’ movie, can you smell when the rock is cooked dwayne johnson’s career is on the ropes, vin diesel accused of molesting, kissing former assistant without her consent in sexual battery lawsuit, vin diesel delivers one of the greatest movie monologues of all time in ‘knockaround guys’.

Fast X ( now on Peacock , in addition to streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video ) is the first of, god help us, a planned three-film mega-finale for a series that wore all the tread off its tires about three movies ago. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THIS NEW MOVIE IS BAD THOUGH, he said, convincing nobody, not even himself. This franchise’s M.O. is more more more, so this time, the already sprawling cast – call ’em a FAM’LY but only if you must – is freshened up with the addition of Jason Momoa as a wacky new villain, Rita Moreno as a great-grandma and Brie Larson as a wholly forgettable government agent. They join headliner Vin Diesel and everyone else, including Michelle Rodriguez, John Cena, Tyrese Gibson, Charlize Theron, Jordana Brewster, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Jason Statham, Dark Helmet’s father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate, Helen Mirren for some reason, Grumpy Cat (via archival footage), your mom and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver. Am I forgetting anyone (without letting any spoiler cats out of the bag)? Probably. I openly admit to walking into this movie with preconceived negative bias, which is partly due to director Justin Lin quitting the gig (he reportedly said the movie “isn’t worth my mental health”) and being replaced by director of too many B-minus movies Louis Leterrier, and also is the natural result of having mirthlessly endured the previous nine movies. Maybe I’m in the minority with that one (these movies do make a lot of dough), but for the life of me, I don’t know why. Maybe I’m immune to mass hypnosis or something.

FAST X : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open with a repurposed sequence from (plumbs the decrepit depths of my memory; double-checks Wikipedia) Fast Five – you know the one, where Dominic Toretto (Diesel) and his FAM’LY stole a big-ass safe from a bank in Rio de Janeiro by shooting it with harpoons on cables and dragging it behind their automobiles. TEN YEARS AGO, a subtitle blares. The money in that safe belonged to the Reyes family, and the insane violence that occurred in the wake of the heist resulted in the death of the patriarch – and the guy’s son has been really P.O.’d for a decade. His name is Dante (Momoa), and he’s just now finally executing his revenge scheme, which is so convoluted and covers all the angles and bases and thinks ahead so many steps, it should’ve taken two decades to concoct.

But before we get to that, we catch up with Dom as he teaches his son Brian (Leo Abelo Perry), nickname Little B, how to drive. Well, not just to drive, but to leave smoldering rubber figure-eights on the pavement of a parking lot with Dom’s signature slate-gray Dodge Charger. The kid’s like, seven years old or something, but it’s never too early to learn how to tear ass. Tearing ass has saved Dom’s life dozens of times, as you’re all too aware. Then they gather for a barbeque with Dom’s wife Letty (Rodriguez) and Crew peeps Rej (Bridges) and Roman (Pearce) and Ramsey (Emmanuel) and Mia (Brewster) and Han (Kang), and also Dom’s grandma (Moreno), who arrives to deliver heavy-handed speeches about FAM’LY. Now we know where Dom gets it.

That night, there’s a knock at the door, and it’s Cipher (Theron). Yeah, she’s a bad guy, but she’s in rough shape and she manages to talk Dom out of finishing the job. She got the tar walloped out of her by Dante and his goons, and she’s here to enlist Dom’s help – the enemy of my enemy, and all that. Thus begins the most overwrought snaking winding tangled pretzeled contortion of a revenge plot ever put to celluloid, one that busts up Dom’s crew for the whole damn entire movie, so consider that a warning (they’re prolly saving the big reunion for 12 Fast 12 Furious 12 , due somewheres around 2027). Roman and Ramsey and Han and Rej go to Rome for a gig only to learn it’s a trap, resulting in a maniacal chase sequence in which they barrel through the city in a Paw Patroller with Dante’s giant bomb in the back and Dom tears ass and Letty rips it up on her motorcycle and the bomb gets loose and rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls like it was on top of spaghetti before it explodes and nearly destroys the Vatican, and the whole escapade wraps with Helen Mirren saying to Dom, “It ain’t no Roman holiday, and you ain’t no Gregory Peck” as they look upon the smoldering wreckage of Rome, to which I can only respond, good Christ .

This is all rather nuts, but par for the F/F course. It’s all downhill from here, I’m afraid. The plot eventually enlists Dom’s brother Jakob (Cena) to babysit Little B when he becomes Dante’s kidnapping target, and puts American gov’t agents Tess (Larson) and Aimes (Alan Ritchson) in the middle of the brouhaha, and rubber gets burnt from Yuma to Antarctica and many points in-between. There’s a great bit where Aimes sums up Dom’s crooks-turned-heroes crew by saying, “If it rejects the laws of god and gravity, they did it twice,” which is soon rendered a lie, because there’s a third and fourth and fifth time – at least – yet to come in this movie. And after that, it’ll cliffhang us and make us wait two years for some resolution.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Twenty-first-century action movie franchises, ranked:

1. John Wick

1a. Mission: Impossible

2. Planet of the Apes

163. Fast and Furious

Performance Worth Watching: So, so many paychecks being cashed here. But I will say Theron stands out as someone who takes this shit very seriously without taking it very seriously at all, if that makes sense, and Cena’s upbeat-goofball tone is disarming and funny. Between them, they draw a few effortless laughs in a movie that otherwise tongue-in-cheeks itself to death.

Memorable Dialogue: Cipher drops this doozy while still bleeding from Dante’s assault: “Fought the devil tonight. Honestly, I always thought it was me – kinda disappointing.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: All the Fast X hype’s been about Momoa’s nutty, out-there performance as the flamboyant villain, but remember, context is everything; in comparison to the other performances here, it’s definitely… different . Colorful. Campy in the opposite direction of Diesel, a true foil for Dom’s poker-faced man of few grunts, words and/or grunted words. Yet by any reasonable criteria outside the Fast and Furious bubble, Momoa’s grandstanding is annoying tryhardism that begs comparison to Johnny Depp’s more grating roles. It’s memorable for all the wrong reasons. Maybe some will find it amusing, but it’s just more sand in the jockey shorts of haters (he said, looking for the nearest bidet).

I understand why Leterrier and Momoa make the decisions they do, because it’s clear after nine noisy OTT action-smash outings, this series needs a shot in the arm. It peaked creatively a few movies ago and has since devolved into repetitive spectacle and something I like to call rampant franchiseism, where you need to know all the ins and outs of the previous films to comprehend the new one. If you’re not up to snuff, you either have to put in the work ahead of time or sit back and watch a nonsensical blur of faces and color and explosions. It ceases to be dumbass entertainment and becomes more stultifying than your 11th-grade teacher’s monotone lecture on The Agony and the Ecstasy .

Structurally, Fast X consists of a handful of subplots that Leterrier tosses into the playground like marbles. They roll around here, and there: There’s the one where Dom ends up in a street race against Dante in Rio (a return to the series’ dopey-ass roots), the one where Letty wakes up in a secret prison next to Cipher, the one where Jakob and Little B ram around in a flying kayak, the one where Rej and Roman and Han and Ramsey fart around and end up reacquainting with an old frenemy, the one with Brie Larson and the other agent guy, the one with Mia that abruptly stops. Sometimes, the subplots turn up familiar faces from past movies, and eventually, a couple of them intertwine but never reach anything resembling a satisfying conclusion. Taking into account that Fast X isn’t a complete movie, but rather one-third of a larger whole yet to be finished, lack of resolution is a given, but getting to the to-be-continued dots-of-ellipsis ending should be more enjoyable. There’s one shot here in which Rodriguez’s motorcyclist stunt-double pulls off a badass maneuver – probably with the help of CGI, the visual lifeblood of this movie – that inspired a big laugh and broke me out of a stupor, but for the other two hours and 20-and-three-quarters minutes of this movie, I was bored out of my skull.

Our Call: Out of gas. Spinning its tires. Stuck in the ditch. Slid too far off the road. Grinding its gears. Crashed and burning with one wheel spinning. Insert your automobile cliche here. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Fast X review: This franchise is running out of gas

Whenever the newest chapter of the Toretto family saga isn't coasting off the past glories of Fast Five, it's desperately trying to be a superhero movie.

Christian Holub is a writer covering comics and other geeky pop culture. He's still mad about 'Firefly' getting canceled.

Anyone sitting down to watch Fast X is surely a fan of Fast Five … or at least, that's what the makers of the newest installment are counting on. The 2011 blockbuster still stands as the peak of this franchise, the one that turned things up a notch by uniting all the stars from the disparate first four Fast & Furious films into a globe-trotting Avengers-like super-team. The four sequels since then, alas, have gotten more than a little repetitive with their constant cyber-heists and celebrity cameos, so Fast X begins by trying to remind fans of past glories.

The new film from director Louis Leterrier literally reuses footage from the climax of Fast Five , where Dominic Toretto ( Vin Diesel ) and pals stole a bank vault by dragging it through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. This time, new character Dante Reyes ( Jason Momoa ) is clumsily inserted in the background. He's the son of Fast Five antagonist Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), you see, and was there the whole time! This is a cheap way to make a new villain seem menacing and meaningful. Though having Momoa glower and grimace through one of the high-octane highlights of 2010s action cinema is not quite as sacrilegious as Ghostbusters: Afterlife digging up the CGI ghost of Harold Ramis, it's definitely annoying.

It would be one thing if Fast Five director Justin Lin were at the helm, as he was originally supposed to be after returning to the franchise for 2021's F9 , but Lin mysteriously dropped out as director of Fast X less than a week into filming. That makes the recycled footage feel a bit too much like stealing valor by ripping off the work of a master action filmmaker to make this less-stellar successor seem more important.

In any case, the plot of Fast X (out this weekend) follows Dante's revenge scheme against Dom for killing his father. This isn't "eye for an eye," though; Dante believes that he should "never accept death when suffering is owed." So rather than kill Dom, Dante seeks to hurt him by targeting his beloved family that you've heard so much about. First introduced in 2017's The Fate of the Furious , Dom's son Brian Marcos has grown from a baby into a young teenager (Leo Abelo Perry) who's inherited his dad's love of cars. Naturally, he is Dante's primary target.

Momoa plays Dante like a flamboyant Disney villain, which is a cute change of pace but fits uneasily in the world of the movie. No question this franchise is silly — remember when Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) went to space in the last one? — but having one character constantly ridiculing the others and making mockery of everything feels maybe a little too on-the-nose.

After that opening retcon flashback, Fast X employs another tired cliche to artificially inflate Dante's menace. Within minutes, the franchise's former top villain Cipher ( Charlize Theron ) shows up at Dom's door, beaten and bloodied, to moan about how Dante is "the devil" and way worse than she ever was. Okay.

Fast Five 's main competitor for "best 2010s action film centered on cars" was Mad Max: Fury Road , so it made sense to slot that movie's star into this franchise starting with The Fate of the Furious . Yet it's alarming how little they've utilized the greatest action star of our time . After two movies of mostly sitting around in glass boxes and performing hand-wavey feats of "hacking," Theron finally gets a couple Atomic Blonde -worthy fistfights in Fast X , but the actress who played Imperator Furiosa still hasn't been allowed to drive a car. What's that about?

Dante isn't the only new character introduced for Fast X , either. Reacher star Alan Ritchson arrives as Aimes, who has taken over the spy agency once led by Kurt Russell 's Mr. Nobody but is a lot less friendly to Dom and pals than his former boss. Brie Larson , meanwhile, shows up as Mr. Nobody's daughter Tess, who does want to help the Toretto crew. With so many faces new and old squeezed into one 142-minute runtime — we should also mention that another former villain, Jakob Toretto ( John Cena ), is back in a more heroic role — it's hard to get a handle on who exactly Tess is or why we should care about her. There sure are a lot of references to the absent Mr. Nobody, though.

It doesn't help that one of Tess' introductory scenes is set in a biker bar, which feels a little too much like a similar scene from Captain Marvel . In fact, whenever Fast X isn't trying to coast off the highs of Fast Five , it's desperately trying to be a superhero movie. Dom spends most of the movie trying to save lives, which is always nice, but at one point he literally deflects a hail of bullets with a car door like it's Captain America's shield.

Several moments are so reminiscent of Christopher Nolan 's Batman movies that they feel intentional. Fast X 's first action setpiece involves Dom trying to save a city from a gigantic bomb like the one that threatens Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises . When one character pleads "you've done everything you could," Dom even replies "not everything." You can practically hear Christian Bale 's voice completing the quote with "...not yet." Later, Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ) tries to break out of an underground prison fortress like she's scaling Bane's pit. It's these seemingly serious stakes that sit oddly alongside Momoa's over-the-top campiness. Are we supposed to feel threatened, or is it all just in good fun? Why so serious, Dom?

Obviously our culture is drowning in superhero movies, so it's hard for other stories to escape their gravitational pull. But one nice thing about the Fast franchise used to be how it could deliver a similar type of blockbuster spectacle as the Marvel Cinematic Universe while also doing something distinctly different. Those lines have now blurred, and Fast X has even echoed the most annoying aspect of the superhero genre: The endless serialized storytelling. "The end of the road begins" is a fitting if nonsensical tagline for the new film, because it literally ends on a cliffhanger. Fast X wants all the grandiosity of finality while not actually ending anything. Grade: C

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REVIEW: “Fast X” (2023)

While none of us can make sense of their hilariously arbitrary titles (“Fast Five”, “Fast & Furious 6”, “Furious 7”, “The Fate of the Furious”, “F9”, etc.), one thing is for sure – the Fast and Furious movies have fully embraced what has made the franchise such a hit. Since taking a dramatic turn in 2011 with its fifth installment, the series has grown into one of the most expense and most profitable popcorn franchises in big screen history.

The latest chapter is “Fast X” and it’s being advertised as the first film in a possible trilogy that will bring the adrenaline-fueled saga to an end (it even sports the tagline “ the end of the road begins “). Vin Diesel returns as the series centerpiece Dominic Toretto. Pretty much everyone else is back as well for this $340 million last ride.

“Fast X” doesn’t do anything to break the mold. So if you like the previous movies this one will deliver the same over-the-top, fuel-injected action spectacle you’ll be looking for. The reverse is also true. If you didn’t care for the other films in the franchise there’s nothing new in “Fast X” that will suddenly win you over. Well maybe Jason Momoa who plays the story’s giddily diabolical antagonist. He’s a blast and goes for broke in delivering a villain like none other we’ve seen in the franchise.

“F9” was a little wobbly with several nagging issues keeping it from living up to expectations. Still it had the crazy set pieces and most (not all) of the characters we have grown to love. As you might guess, “Fast X” amps up nearly everything. It’s not as distractingly absurd as “F9”, but it still features the franchise’s signature reality-defying action and it miraculously finds time to give everyone some meaningful moments. It’s pure fan food, made from start to finish with fans in mind.

One thing is for sure, “Fast X” is far from a standalone movie. In fact you’re guaranteed to have more questions after the movie than you did at the start of it. Director Louis Leterrier, working from a screenplay by Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin, puts a lot of things in motion and their cliffhanger ending leaves several loose story threads dangling. But that’s okay for a tale of the size and scope.

Diesel gives one of his better performances of the series, portraying Dom as both tough-as-nails yet vulnerable. He loves his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his young son Brian (Leo Abelo Perry) more than anything else and he has worked so hard to keep them and his extended family safe. But the constant worry is clearly taking an emotional toll on him.

But once again the past comes back to haunt Dom. This time its in the form of the flamboyant and maniacal Dante Reyes (a hysterical and unnerving Momoa). He’s the son of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), a violent drug kingpin who was killed during 2011’s “Fast Five”. Dante is intent on paying back the man he holds responsible for killing his father and stealing their family fortune – Dominic Toretto. And what better way than by taking away what’s dearest to Dom – his family.

Of course in the Fast & Furious movies family isn’t just blood kin. It also includes loyal friends like Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Han (Sung Kang), and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel). Dom’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster) and his little brother, Jakob (John Cena) also find themselves in the mix. That’s a lot of people to protect and the sadistic Dante knows it. So he hatches a meticulously crafted plan aimed at separating Dom’s loved ones and luring them all across the globe. Not even Dom can be five places at once. So the danger ratchets up and the personal stakes get higher and higher.

As the story takes shape Leterrier ushers us around the globe, making stops in London, Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Portugal, and Antarctica among others. At each stop we meet old friends like Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) and some old enemies like Cipher (Charlize Theron). And there are plenty of new faces as well played by the likes of Brie Larson, Daniela Melchior, and Alan Ritchson. Yes, it’s a massive cast.

By the end it feels like this final story is only getting started. We’re left shocked by certain outcomes, wondering about certain fates, and curious for what lies ahead. And what can I say – I enjoyed the ride. Even more, Diesel and company did their job of leaving me genuinely looking forward to the next film. As with all the FF movies you have to endure a rather large amount of silliness, and buying into some of the plot machinations can be a challenge. Those are baked-in issues that have been around for years.

But the franchise freed itself from the restraints of reality a long time ago. “Fast X” is openly self-aware yet it has an undeniably big heart. And Momoa brings a blithely psychotic energy that you can’t turn away from. It’s hard to get a good read on the film since so much is left for later. But the movie sets the table well, all while delivering just the kind of big budget popcorn entertainment it advertises. In the end, it’s hard to knock it too much for being exactly what its fans want it to be. “Fast X” is now showing exclusively in theaters.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Movie Review: A delicious Jason Momoa saves ‘Fast X’ from furiously speeding off into numbness

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Vin Diesel in a scene from “Fast X.” (Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Vin Diesel, left, and Daniela Melchior in a scene from “Fast X.” (Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Vin Diesel in a scene from “Fast X.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows a scene from “Fast X.” (Giulia Parmigiani/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows, clockwise from left, Michelle Rodriguez, Sung Kang, Nathalie Emmanuel, Vin Diesel, Leo Abelo Perry, Rita Morena, Jordana Brewster, Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson in a scene from “Fast X.” (Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures via AP)

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Jason Momoa in a scene from “Fast X.” (Giulia Parmigiani/Universal Pictures via AP)

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Fans and critics may disagree over when exactly the “Fast & Furious” franchise jumped the shark, but there is only one correct answer: When the Pontiac Fiero went into space.

Weightless and violating every physical law, the floating car — tasked with bumping a satellite in the ninth installment — was the very symbol of how bloated and crazed the once-plucky series had become. There really was no way down after that.

And yet we have come to 10, part of a planned series of films finally saying goodbye. “Fast X” is, thankfully, shackled to Earth’s gravity — sometimes tenuously, it must be said — but it has become almost camp, as if it breathed in too much of its own fumes.

“Fast X” reaches into the fifth movie — 2011’s “Fast Five” — for the seeds to tell a new story. In a memorable moment five movies ago, Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto wrecked a bad guy and his team on a bridge in Rio de Janeiro. Little did we know then, but that bad guy had a son who survived and now, years later, vows vengeance. That’s it. That’s the plot.

That said, “Fast X” is monstrously silly and stupidly entertaining — just Wile E. Coyote stuff, ridiculous stunts employing insane G-forces and everything seemingly on fire. There are elements of “Mission: Impossible,” 007 and “John Wick,” as if all the action franchises were somehow merging. But here’s a warning: It careens to an end without a payoff, a more dangerous stunt than any in the movies themselves.

Michael Keaton, left, star of the upcoming film "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice," discusses the film alongside director Tim Burton during the Warner Bros. Pictures presentation at CinemaCon 2024, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

The film would not be near enough as fun without Jason Momoa, who plays the bad guy’s son as a full-on flamboyant psycho, licking a knife clean after killing someone with it and painting the toenails of a dead victim as he displays the corpse in a demented garden party. “Never accept death when suffering is owed,” he says.

He is half Joaquin Phoenix from “The Joker” and half Jack Sparrow from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Momoa has a penchant for planning explosions and then standing on a high spot and throwing his arms wide like Christ the Redeemer as the blast wave hits. The film sags as soon as he’s not in it.

Momoa is part of the franchise’s familiar tactic of stacking ever more stars with not enough to do — this time we also welcome Brie Larson, Alan Ritchson, Daniela Melchior and Rita Moreno. There’s even a Pete Davidson cameo.

That’s on top of regulars Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordana Brewster, John Cena, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Sung Kang, Scott Eastwood and Helen Mirren, whose attempt once again at a working-class accent is comical. This is a clown car of talent. The poster for the film includes 14 characters, like an Avengers movie.

At the center is the always-sleeveless Diesel, who keeps getting exposed as a truly terrible actor, one who evidently only attended the Brooding 101 seminar in drama school. The filmmakers usually just prop him up in front of a wall of family photos and he stares at them intently. “I only care about protecting the people that I love,” he will growl.

Family — as fans of the franchise know well — is always central, or rather, a gothic zero-sum notion of blood’s bond explained with soap opera dialogue. Toretto must protect family no matter the cost (but apparently OK with leaving his 8-year-old son in someone else’s care as he drag races in Rio). “You know what your problem is?” teases Momoa. “Family. You can’t save them all.”

New director Louis Leterrier — from a screenplay by veteran Justin Lin and newcomers Zach Dean and Dan Mazeau — take us from Los Angeles to Antarctica, threatening much of Rome with a 20 kiloton bomb along the way and ending the movie at the side of a dam in Portugal in a cliffhanger. Stick around for the credits and even more mega-stars are promised for the next installment.

What you get this time are two brutal hand-to-hand fights, a car smashing two helicopters and rush hour traffic, car bombs, remote-controlled cars (big and small), vehicles that leap into the sky like salmon and a plane that drops a souped-up racer from its belly onto the highway.

Taking material from “Fast Five” means the delicate task of returning to Paul Walker, the franchise veteran who died in 2013. Old footage of Walker does appear in “Fast X” as the movie recreates events on that Rio bridge. It is handled respectfully and coolly. In a nice touch, Walker’s daughter, Meadow, has a cameo as a flight attendant.

With a foot in the past, one in the future and one on the gas, “Fast X” is pure popcorn lunacy. Was that too many feet? Oh, excuse us, you wanted logic?

“Fast X,” a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material. Running time: 134 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Online: https://www.fastxmovie.com

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Vin Diesel and Daniela Melchior in Fast X.

Fast X review – more overcranked nonsense with Vin Diesel and co

Fasten your seatbelts as everything smashes into everything else in this not-quite finale to the Fast and Furious franchise

T he Fast and Furious series began with a souped-up, street-racing B-movie that metastasised into a behemoth Mission: Impossible style franchise with explosive FX set pieces that defied the laws of physics and drama alike. A recent outing strapped a rocket on to a car and shot key cast members into space; this 10th chapter sends what looks like a miniature Death Star crashing through the streets of Rome to blow up the Vatican. Hey ho.

Old enemies become friends (and vice versa) and scenic locations (London, Portugal, Antarctica) are whistlestopped, while familiar faces (living and dead) get crowd-pleasing cameos and everything smashes into everything else. At one point a car jumps out of an aeroplane and hits the road running, only to take flight once more thanks to some exploding helicopters, before later turning into a submarine. Disbelief is not so much suspended as detonated.

On the human front, Vin Diesel delivers endless gravelly speeches about “fambly”, Michelle Rodriguez reminds us that she’s more than a match for any muscle-bound man, and Jason Momoa camps it up entertainingly as a ballet-obsessed villain of no fixed hairstyle. Strap in; there’s more of this overcranked finale nonsense on the way.

Fast and Furious
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Action and adventure films

‘Fast X’ Review: Jason Momoa Steals the Show in This Overstuffed, Yet Still Entertaining Installment

Louis Leterrier's first ride in the F&F universe is stuffed with characters and storylines, but remains fun in its distinct, absurd way.

“No one outruns their past,” a wise man once said. But Dominic Toretto ( Vin Diesel ) also said it in F9 , a movie where the guy who sang “Pimpin’ All Over the World” went to space and John Cena ziplined over Edinburgh. As the Fast & Furious franchise has grown through 10 films, a spinoff, an animated series, a terrible theme park ride, and more, this group has grown from street racers stealing DVD players to freelancing for secretive government agencies. They’ve put a lot of road behind them, going from thieves to apparently the world’s greatest defense against terrorist threats, but one thing has always remained consistent: family.

Fast X is supposedly the beginning of the end (whether Fast X is the beginning of a two-part finale or the start of a trilogy is still unknown), which has the whole family going even bigger than ever before against a threat that could destroy them all. Especially in recent years, Fast & Furious has embraced the ridiculousness, expanding the possibilities beyond what we could’ve ever expected back when this series started in 2001, and that absurdity has been part of this world’s charm. Dwayne Johnson can redirect a submarine’s missile with a punch, and Dom can completely rewrite the laws of physics, and it’s this insanity that makes these movies the rare theatrical experience that makes you want to stand up and cheer at the screen. With the finish line in view, Fast & Furious is going big before it goes home (likely for a barbecue), and Fast X shows how this can be a double-edged sword.

The biggest, wildest, and most brilliant addition to Fast X is the new antagonist Dante ( Jason Momoa ), the son of Fast Five ’s drug lord Hernan Reyes. Since Dom brought an end to Hernan in that film’s climactic chase, Dante wants revenge and to make Dom suffer. And since Dom literally can’t go more than ten minutes without mentioning how much family means to him, Dante knows exactly where to hit to hurt Dom the most. With tech stolen from Cipher ( Charlize Theron ), a deep need for vengeance, and the desire to destroy Dom’s family, Dante might be the most intimidating villain that the F&F franchise has seen so far.

RELATED: First 'Fast X' Reactions Call It Absolutely Bonkers as Jason Momoa Steals the Show

And Momoa is certainly having the time of his life in Fast X . Not only does he play Dante as an unhinged maniac who seemingly has no chance of becoming yet another villain brought into Dom’s family, but he acts like the only character in this entire series to realize just how batshit bonkers this entire universe is. He’s an absolute flamboyant goof, popping up in wild outfits, ready with a slew of instantly quotable lines, and with a personality that is both hilarious and unpredictable. If Dom represents stoic, stern masculinity, Dante is the exact opposite, and Momoa is a true joy to watch as he chews every piece of scenery he can find. But Momoa manages to be one of the most entertaining new additions to this world in quite some time, and also the most intimidating villain within this series.

The problem with Fast X ’s approach to going big in what seems like the final chapters is that there’s just too much to lasso in, even with a runtime pushing two-and-a-half hours. With this cast scattered around the world, there’s only so much time to spend with any one group of characters, and while part of what’s always made this series fun is the group dynamics, separating these groups from each other makes you miss the family not being together. With at least one more entry left in this specific story, that means there’s plenty of room to branch out, but as is often the case with films that are building towards a larger story that can’t be contained into one film, Fast X often feels more like it’s building towards what’s to come as opposed to what this film’s story should be.

This segmentation of the story makes this frequently seem like several mini-movies crammed into one incomplete narrative—many of which have their own tone. While Dom is after Dante, Roman ( Tyrese Gibson ) is leading his own first mission with Tej ( Ludacris ), Ramsey ( Nathalie Emmanuel ), and Han ( Sung Kang ), which primarily becomes about dropping exposition, random cameos, and classic Roman and Tej antics. Meanwhile, Letty ( Michelle Rodriguez ) has to escape her own strange situation, Mr. Nobody’s associates (newcomers Brie Larson and Alan Ritchson ) have conflicting ways of handling “the family,” while John Cena ’s Jakob is on his own family adventure with Dom’s kid, Brian ( Leo Abelo Perry ). This is already a sprawling story, but throw into that mix that Oscar-winners Helen Mirren and Rita Moreno pop in for only a few minutes without anything to do, Mia ( Jordana Brewster ) is once again mostly left out, and characters like Scott Eastwood ’s Little Nobody quickly appear and are phased out of the story immediately. The scope and size of this series have always centered around the bombastic and truly unbelievable action sequences that this entire crew is a part of, so scattering this massive cast around the globe severs a major part of what makes these movies so fun to begin with.

It’s also a shame that because this film was made with future installments in mind, none of these stories find any sort of conclusion—instead, they’re just paused until Fast 11 , whenever that may be. This fragmentation of stories also makes it easier to criticize what doesn’t work. Sure, when this group is all together, racing around and blowing things up, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of it all. But with some of these stories—especially Cena and Perry’s journey—managing to be fun, they seem inconsequential and even counterproductive to the larger mission. Again, it’s as if Fast X has to cram these characters into this film, and there’s just too much to handle.

Thankfully, despite there already being ten films worth of characters to draw from, the new additions are quite solid. It can’t be understated how great Dante is as a villain, while Larson fills Mr. Nobody’s shoes quite well, and Ritchson’s Aimes is a decent addition to this cast of massive actors who could snap any of us into a twig at any moment. Daniela Melchior , who doesn’t get enough to do, is still a nice reminder of these characters’ pasts, and it would be great to see more of her in later installments.

And considering the drama behind the scenes, in which Justin Lin left the production after filming had started, Louis Leterrier does a decent job with his first go at this world. He gets the over-the-top tone that this franchise needs, and working with a script by Lin and first-time F&F writer Dan Mazeau , Fast X acknowledges and has fun with just how wild this series can go. Characters comment on how this team went from low-level thieves to a major part of the world’s safety, and there are plenty of jokes at Dom’s expense and his frequent talk about family. Like F9 , Fast X is in on the joke and wants to joke around with the audience about how insane this series is at its core.

Even though Fast X is spread too thin, and we’re starting to see the consequences of this ever-expanding family, it’s still a blast to watch. There are parts that certainly don’t make a lick of sense, and there are entire characters and stories that this installment probably could’ve done without. Yet that’s all par for the course with Fast & Furious, and at this point, it’s the type of series you either embrace with open arms, flaws and all, and enjoy the ride, or you don’t—and both are understandable. For all its flaws, Fast X is still an absurdly fun time at the movies that is ridiculous and charming in all the right ways, even at its worst.

Fast X comes to theaters on May 19.

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Fast X Feels Like a Head Injury

The Fast & Furious franchise has been about many things since it started as a comparatively modest street-racing thriller back in 2001. It’s been about cars, obviously: cars that go fast and drift around corners and, in later movies, prove themselves capable of launching into orbit and tenderly catching people on their hoods as though cradling them in cushioned catcher’s mitts. It’s about family, in both the biological and the found sense, with the latter slowly sucking in so many past antagonists that the movies occasionally take a beat to acknowledge who has previously tried to kill whom. It’s about the lingering allure of Hollywood bombast, and about the successful exporting of the kind multiethnic ensemble that same Hollywood used to insist the rest of the world didn’t want, and about gyrating butts in close-up. But now that the Fast & Furious es are firmly in their dotage — Fast X is more self-referential remix project than film, an idiot 2046 for a series out of new roads to zoom down — what they’re especially about is the state of stardom. No actor seems able to escape the gravitational pull of these movies, and it doesn’t feel like a spoiler to note that some well-known ones make unannounced appearances in this latest installment.

Between all the returning cast members and the new ones, Fast X is deliriously unwieldy. It’s barely able to attend to all the big names involved — like, who needed Brie Larson to be in this and why? — and the way it hoards them turns the movie into an unintended treatise on how much power has tipped from stars to brands. The celebrities need this aging blockbuster saga more than it needs them, and the ones who try to leave come crawling back eventually, with their characters’ deaths or departures retroactively explained away. Vin Diesel himself took off after The Fast and the Furious , which alongside Pitch Black helped vault him into prominence. But by 2009, after The Chronicles of Riddick flopped and he’d starred in a fish-out-of-water babysitting comedy , he wasn’t just back in the role of Dominic Toretto, he’d been promoted to producer as well. If you can’t leave the series, you may as well become it, and Diesel’s fused himself to this IP so thoroughly that, mid-production on Fast X , he managed to chase away director Justin Lin , who alongside writer Chris Morgan was one of the franchise’s main architects (Lin retains a screenplay credit). The Transporter ’s Louis Leterrier took over, though the film plays more like it was made by an AI versed in the existing movies but not quite up to spitting out something coherent itself.

It is, despite all this, a decent diversion, though watching it feels like sustaining a head injury. Not far into the run time, a bloody Charlize Theron shows up at the Toretto house (remember how Charlize Theron is in these now?) as yet another villain looking to turn ally. “There’s a war coming. Sides will be chosen and everyone you love will be destroyed,” she gasps out; these are basically evergreen words for this franchise that would have fit into at least four past films. Theron’s cyberterrorist Cipher has had a run-in with ascendant baddie Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), who in classic fashion has been retconned into the series as the son of Hernan Reyes, the Rio de Janeiro drug lord played by Joaquim de Almeida in Fast Five . Momoa does not attempt a Brazilian accent, but he is — how to put this — doing something like a femme affectation? Dante wears flamboyant outfits, paints his dead victims’ toenails, and trills “ Buongiorno! ” while tumbling a neutron bomb through the streets of Rome like a giant pinball. He jokes about looking to tone down the masculinity and is vaguely reminiscent of the gender-dissident revolutionary played by Silvero Pereira in Bacurau , though that’s surely overthinking things. Mostly, Momoa is going big, though given how outsize Fast X is, it just ends up registering on the same scale as everything else. I didn’t hate it!

Fast X finds the family getting framed by Dante and trying to find him while being pursued by the Agency (formerly headed by Kurt Russell, the only actor in the world not in this movie), the secret organization Dom & Co. have done jobs for in the past. The characters get split up and clumped into their own subgenres — Nathalie Emmanuel, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, and Ludacris are doing light comedy, while Michelle Rodriguez and Theron are in a gritty escape flick, John Cena and Leo Abelo Perry (playing Dom’s son) embark on a buddy road-trip movie, and Larson is in a girlboss spy drama alongside Reacher ’s Alan Ritchson as new Agency boss Aimes. Flipping between all these tones is disorienting, but the movie settles down whenever Diesel is onscreen, mostly because Diesel is acting harder than anyone has ever acted in their life, and also because the movie is for him. Every line he delivers feels engineered to be clipped and used without context for promotional purposes. Shots linger for a beat too long on his face, which has begun accruing the vague unreality of a CGI creation. When he, say, jerks his head around at an unexpected sound, it’s so dramatic it can startle a laugh out of you. Fast X may treat movie stars like they’re a dime a dozen, but it’s an altar for its lead, lifting him up like a minor deity fallen to earth. The series may be running on fumes, but as it coasts toward what’s promised to be its final episode, you can at least count on it doing everything it can to make Diesel look larger than life and sound twice as gravelly.

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Find Family Movies, Movie Ratings and Movie Reviews

Fast X Parent Guide

Violent and incoherent, this film lumbers through its bloated run time with a ridiculous script and weak acting..

Theaters: Dom Toretto and his family face their most lethal opponent yet: the vengeful son of a drug kingpin they defeated years before.

Release date May 19, 2023

Run Time: 141 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

When Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) stole the vault from drug lord Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), they launched Reyes’ son Dante (Jason Momoa) on a quest for revenge. Living by his father’s advice to never let death suffice when suffering is owed, Dante sets out to destroy everything Dom loves most: His family.

After Dante frames Dom’s crew for a major explosion and high-speed car chase through Rome which nearly destroys the Vatican, Dom finds himself at the top of the international most-wanted lists. Separated from his friends and family (and hoping that they can stay out of Dante’s clutches), Dom must learn to work alone. Dante is a step ahead, though, and things are looking grim for anyone who ever helped Dominic Toretto.

Vin Diesel has mystified me for years. He has the emotional range, facial expression, and physical presence of the average refrigerator, but he’s somehow managed to leverage a large frame and gravelly voice into years of profitable work. That means that this movie relies on his co-stars to carry all the movie’s attempts at emotional weight. Weirdly, John Cena seems to be the most successful. His over-the-top pro wrestling chops are perfect for this juggernaut of a franchise. Jason Momoa has also opted for an approach with no subtlety whatsoever. He lands somewhere between Tim Curry in Rocky Horror and Heath Ledger as the Joker. If you can look past the teeth marks in the scenery, he might just be the highlight.

That said, being the highlight of a fire in a sewage processing plant isn’t a particularly high bar, and Fast X makes a heap of flaming human waste look like a real treat. It’s approximately a million years too long, and limps through that runtime with the weight of approximately four thousand named characters on its back. This franchise has been around for so long that the list of actors and characters associated is simply unmanageable. I don’t know who anyone but Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez are anymore, but I also cannot even begin to care. If you’re new to the franchise… good luck.

Adults looking for a coherent story will be disappointed but parents hoping for two and a half hours of distraction for their teens could, surprisingly, do worse than Fast X . The violence is all fairly goofy, and there’s not a whole ton of sex or swearing. One character does eat a “fun” muffin, but I couldn’t tell you what was in there. Something mildly hallucinogenic, at any rate. Aside from the violence, the rest of this film is more family suitable than Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 , and honestly, marginally less irritating. Not that this is an endorsement. I had a crown put in at the dentist’s today, and that was a better experience than sitting through this film. It was much quicker, at any rate, although I’m not a fan of the price tag.

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Keith hawkes, watch the trailer for fast x.

Fast X Rating & Content Info

Why is Fast X rated PG-13? Fast X is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material.

Violence: People are frequently involved in high-speed vehicle collisions which never seem to injure named characters, although they are presumably fatal for a lot of other drivers. People are also beaten, shot, stabbed, and blown up. Sexual Content: Some women in swimwear are seen dancing provocatively before a race. Profanity: There are 15 scatological curses and occasional use of mild profanities and terms of deity. Alcohol / Drug Use: Adult characters are briefly seen drinking socially. A character ingests a muffin laced with some kind of hallucinogen.

Page last updated May 18, 2023

Fast X Review

Flirtin’ with disaster..

Fast X opens in theaters on May 19, 2023

Universal doesn’t have X-wings, they have cars that sometimes fly. They don’t have superheroes, they have street racers from Los Angeles who steal VCRs and nuclear subs. With so many filmmakers taking the po-faced, gritty approach to keeping old favorite characters and series relevant in recent years, the Fast and Furious franchise’s open and growing embrace of nonsensical mayhem has been a delight. 2021’s F9 managed to pull off multiple outrageous action scenes based on the magic of magnets. It sent Tyrese and Ludacris to space in a Pontiac. It told us John Cena was Vin Diesel’s brother with a straight face, and we believed it . Or at least, those of us who were willing to suspend enough of our disbelief to go along for the wild ride. But it turns out there’s only so much mileage you can get out of that kind of absurdity without touching grass. The roaring joy of F9 gives way to the cacophonous Fast X, a sprawling and overstuffed opening salvo of a planned multi-part finale which stuffs a potato in the series’ tailpipe. It’s redeemed almost single-handedly by a deeply weird and very entertaining villain performance from Jason Momoa.

It was all the way back in 2011 that Fast Five saw Hobbs chasing Brian and Dom while they were towing drug lord Hernan Reyes' safe through Rio. It was a watershed moment of cartoon logic worming its way into a formerly self-serious series, which paired best with a can of Axe body spray and a copy of Need for Speed Underground 2 on the PS2. And you know what? The movies that followed were mostly the better for it. There’s vulnerability and risk in significantly shifting the tone of a franchise midstream, and few could’ve imagined watching the 2001 original that not only would the Fast movies take that risk at all, but be so successful in transitioning it to something uniquely bombastic.

As this series is wont to do, Fast X sloppily reveals that Hernan’s son Dante (Jason Momoa) was actually present during that whole chase scene and, after seeing his family’s ill-gotten fortune destroyed and his father killed, has re-emerged to wage war on Dom (Vin Diesel) - the ringleader of the world’s premier group of car thieves/international spies - promising no death while suffering is owed. His revenge motivation may be clear, and Fast X hammers his Anti-Dom foil status home at every turn, but the ways in which Dante brings that vengeance to bear on the Fast Family are as erratic as Dante himself. It’s only through the technology and mercenary forces that he is somehow able to amass that he’s able to do much of anything. He wants to make Dom suffer by hurting his family, but routinely ignores opportunities to twist that knife in ways that read as less patiently sadistic and more just… ineffective.

The looseness of the character demanded an actor ready to exploit that in their performance, and Jason Momoa showed up to set hungry. Dante’s effectiveness as an antagonist aside, the boundless chaos energy Momoa sustains throughout the entirety of Fast X is the one consistently enjoyable element. There’s no other way to say it: Dante’s a real freak, and Momoa flies that flag with gusto. It feels like he’s marathoned all these movies and parodies Dom’s machismo and predictable logic at every turn, both to Dom’s face and he’s completely alone. It’s the private moments of goatee-twirling that set Dante apart from other villains in the series to date, and Momoa deserves a huge amount of credit for keeping Fast X from sinking under its own weight.

What's the best Fast movie so far?

Dom Torretto, by comparison, feels like he’s just drifting from one rumination on the meaning of family to another, and Vin Diesel feels checked out any time Momoa isn’t actively forcing him to push Dom in a different direction, as opposed to regurgitating what we’ve heard before.

None of Fast X’s clumsily orchestrated car Rube Goldbergs manage much of an identity of their own either, and that’s a shattering disappointment for a series that has historically found new and interesting ways to move vehicles through time and space and explosions. Multiple action scenes feel like rehashes of previous movies - remember when Hobbs and Shaw played tug of war with a helicopter? Well, now Dom’s gonna do the same thing with two helicopters ! Does it escalate things? Yes. Is it stunningly original? It is not.

It’s not a great bellwether for the symphonies of motorized mayhem that the hand-to-hand fights (especially one featuring Charlize Theron’s Cipher) feel like welcome shakeups. Dante’s weird sacrilegious scheme to roll a bomb through Rome to the Vatican represents the most satisfying action sequence – thanks again largely to Momoa’s unpredictability, and yet there’s a whole lot of movie left after that which can’t escalate the thrills any further. Director Louis Leterrier doesn’t succeed much at celebrating either the maximalism or the melodrama of the series, and it leaves Fast X feeling rather confused in both arenas.

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Dante’s attack on Rome forces the Family to initiate Ghost Protocol (or whatever the Fast equivalent of that is) and split up, setting the Agency on their tail and fragmenting the plot into way more perspectives on the action than the story has material for. Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges”), and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) continue their bickering support act, with Han (Sung Kang) tagging along because he had nothing else going on that day. Fast X grinds to a halt whenever it has to shift focus back to what feels more and more like a budding Peacock series in the wings. We’re only ever checking in on that group so Ramsey can spout some technobabble exposition while Roman and Tej slapfight and argue over hurt feelings caused by bobbleheads, or so that we have a reason to move the action to a city where another extraneous member of the ensemble can have their next mission set into motion.

John Cena’s Jakob is on babysitting duty for most of Fast X, and even though his corner of the story feels as inessential as the other supporters’, Cena’s ace comedic chops and chemistry with Little Brian actor Leo Abelo Perry are a welcome change from the forced schtick of Roman’s crew. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) gets sidelined, stranded in what is at once a prison of her character’s function being reduced to Dom worship and, you know, an actual prison. No one has anything meaningful of their own going on, and so time spent away from either Dom or Dante, or without solidly engaging action, gets harder and harder to justify.

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There are certainly flashes of the camaraderie this group of performers share but, with the subplots feeling totally disconnected from each other, the recurring check-ins don’t really add anything of value. Since we already know that Fast X serves as the first of a two-part franchise finale (or three-part finale, if you believe Vin Diesel…) its efforts to marshal characters both old and new into position for that final lap feel inorganic – shoehorned in, even, for a series which has always celebrated return appearances and new seats at the proverbial dinner table. And like so many “Part One”s before it, Fast X forgoes – or, forgets – any kind of resolution for its own story. The time it starts rapidly raising questions to be answered next time in the last few minutes only feels more egregious. Couldn’t we have heard what Rita Morena thought of all this mindless violence?

Fast X is the beginning of the end, but the race to the end of that beginning is a bumpy ride. Jason Momoa’s bonkers performance as Dante Reyes deserves instant canonization on the Mt. Rushmore of Fast & Furious villains, but that feels like the one differentiating element of this movie. There’s not enough barbeque at the table to go around Dom Toretto’s ever-growing family, and director Louis Leterrier isn’t able to walk the tightrope between excess and self-awareness that the modern Fast films demand. There’s still time for the Fast franchise to cross the finish line in first, but this flat tire of a “part one” will make the last lap a nailbiter.

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WE’VE HAD ENOUGH

Choose your cliché: The franchise is running out of gas! It’s spinning its wheels! It’s stuck in neutral!

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

Universal Pictures

Fast & Furious is one of Hollywood’s all-time most lucrative franchises. It is also one of its dumbest, and that inanity continues apace—by which I mean, at breakneck speed—with Fast X , the tenth (!) chapter in what has become a monument to absurd action-extravaganza excess, laughable platitudes about family, and Vin Diesel ’s superhero-sized ego.

It’s additionally a summer-season series that allows myriad actors not on the Marvel and DC payrolls (and a handful who are!) to earn blockbuster salaries, which is about the only excuse for the majority of these individuals to be wasting their talents on such nonsense.

It's been 12 years since Fast & Furious remade itself from a saga about street racing into some sort of bizarre quasi- Mission: Impossible rip-off, with Diesel’s Dominic Toretto reimagined as an invulnerable badass who works for a covert government agency (known as, ahem, The Agency) to thwart dastardly international criminals.

That transformation never made sense, but from 2011’s Fast Five on, the franchise’s celebration of multicultural unity and vehicular outrageousness has helped obscure its baseline illogicality. Even so, the finish has begun to wear off, peaking with F9 ’s decision to send Ludacris’ Tej and Tyrese Gibson’s Roman—comedic foils who’ve yet to utter a legitimately funny word in eight movies—into space via a rocket-propelled roadster, which felt like a move designed to preempt any parodies about the dim-bulb lengths to which these films will go to one-up their predecessors.

Fast X features no flights to the stars, nor similar instances of heroes doing ridiculous things like redirecting fired rockets with their bare hands à la Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Fate of the Furious . Nonetheless, there’s plenty of preposterousness to be found in this sequel, which barely revs to life when indulging in automotive mayhem and outright stalls every time its human characters open their mouths. No matter which cliché you choose—the series is running out of gas/spinning its wheels/stuck in neutral—Dom and company’s latest exploits are perhaps their most exhaustingly “extreme” to date, not to mention their dimmest.

Turning inward on itself to a ludicrous degree, Fast X begins with a prologue that retcons Fast Five , revealing that when Dom and Brian (Paul Walker) dragged drug lord Hernan Reyes’ (Joaquim de Almeida) vault through Rio de Janeiro (killing the baddie in the process), they gravely injured the villain’s heretofore-unknown son Dante (Jason Momoa). Ten years later, Dante reemerges, intent on fulfilling his dad’s wish that Dom suffer before he dies for this theft.

Why Dante waited a full decade to exact his revenge is never properly explained, but logic isn’t these proceedings’ strong suit. Neither, it turns out, is action, this despite director Louis Leterrier giving it his best over-the-top shot, employing an abundance of zooming, soaring, whooshing camerawork in an effort to keep the energy high. All that sound and fury, alas, feels tired and desperate, and the fact that Leterrier recycles a knocking-a-bomb-off-a-car’s-undercarriage trick from his Transporter 2 only underlines his lack of imagination.

Virtually everyone who’s appeared in a prior Fast & Furious film pops up here, and none of them look particularly thrilled about it. Ludacris and Tyrese half-heartedly engage in ball-busting banter, Jason Statham flashes a few grimaces, John Cena does his earnestly goofy routine, and Scott Eastwood and Brie Larsen (the latter playing the daughter of Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody) blankly glare during their brief screen time.

As Dom’s beloved Letty, Michelle Rodriguez snarls and yells per tradition, and Reacher ’s Alan Ritchson struts around in shirts that are two sizes too small, the better to show off his massive frame. Charlize Theron mostly plays exhausted as super-cyber-criminal Cipher, while Sung Kang looks downright miserable as resurrected Dom pal Han. Even Helen Mirren and Jordana Brewster do some drive-by work, the latter in a scene that asks us to believe that the physically slight actress is capable of taking down a cadre of heavily armed soldiers.

There are so many cameos and callbacks littered throughout Fast X that its story feels secondary. That turns out to be a good thing, since Dante’s plot—killing everything Dom loves, most notably his son Brian (Leo Abelo Perry)—is a drawn-out affair in which the fiend gives Dom every opportunity imaginable to escape harm.

Momoa is the only one who seems to be having any fun, although there’s a debate to be had about whether his brazenly queer-coded performance (all hip-thrusting, brightly painted fingernails, ornate rings, shimmering shirts, chitchat about masculinity standards, and pronouncements like “I’m Dante, au chante!” and “The carpet matches the drapes!”) is colorful or distasteful. Either way, it’s still more tolerable than writers Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin’s third grade-level dialogue. Every utterance is a trailer-tailored bromide (“Sometimes fear can be the best teacher;” “Without honor, you got no family. Without family, you got nothing!”; “The fallout will be existential!”) and, moreover, worse than the last.

Diesel himself glowers, bellows, and poses with typical He-Man-ish confidence, his Dom now so thoroughly rendered a cartoon that his impossible feats (knocking a flaming bomb off-course with his car; plummeting from a plane in his Dodge, and then driving down the wall of a dam) are less awe-inspiring than awfully dull.

Dom’s invincibility neuters any suspense, just as Fast X ’s overpopulated plot shortchanges everyone. It’s a film that’s content to simply put new spins on old centerpieces, and the brief sound of a Harry Potter musical theme only exacerbates the sense that Leterrier’s installment is a retread designed to keep the IP afloat regardless of whether there’s anything novel left to do with these characters, their soap opera entanglements, or their turbo-charged vehicles.

Intended as the first half of a two-part franchise finale (which may now become a trilogy, God forbid), Fast X closes on a monumental cliffhanger. However, given that there’s zero chance its main characters (save for one) are in serious danger of meeting their maker, it proves to be one more affected gesture in a fiasco stuffed full of them, be it sight of Dom crying over a deceased love, wistfully gazing at old photos of himself and Walker’s Brian, or clutching his crucifix as a means of expressing his deep (and oft-referenced) faith. Bloated, listless and unintentionally hilarious, it’s a spectacular wreck.

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Cast & crew

Fast X: Part 2

Plot kept under wraps. Plot kept under wraps. Plot kept under wraps.

Louis Leterrier
Christina Hodson
Jason Statham
Dwayne Johnson
Jason Momoa

Deckard Shaw

Dante Reyes

Dominic Toretto

Letty Ortiz

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Trivia Vin Diesel wants Robert Downey Jr. to portray the 'antithesis' of Dominic Toretto in this film.
Connections Referenced in Amanda the Jedi Show: I Watched 21 HOURS of 'FAST AND FURIOUS' and now I Can't Die (2023)
When will Fast X: Part 2 be released? Powered by Alexa
April 4, 2025 (United States)
United States
United Kingdom
Quá Nhanh Quá Nguy Hiểm 10 - phần 2
One Race Films
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Screen Rant

Is breaking bad really getting a heisenberg sequel movie in 2024 not so fast.

A poster revealing a 2024 Walter White-centered Breaking Bad spin-off movie has gained traction online. Is it real? Here's what we know.

The 2024 Breaking Bad Heisenberg movie poster is fan-made, not legitimate, and not part of any planned continuation of the franchise.
AMC Films is not a real production company, and there are no current plans for a Breaking Bad movie sequel at any point in the future.
After Better Call Saul ended in 2022, Vince Gilligan has moved on to new projects, with no intention of continuing the Breaking Bad franchise beyond it.

A poster has surfaced for a 2024 Breaking Bad Heisenberg movie sequel, bringing its legitimacy into question. For over a decade since the show's ending, audiences have inquired regarding the future of Breaking Bad characters , or at least the select few who survived. The prequel series Better Call Saul offered a few glimpses throughout its run, and the sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie followed up Jessie Pinkman's story in 2019. Still, passionate and dedicated fans of the series crave more, causing a reactive internet response to a poster going around.

Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and El Camino are all available to stream on Netflix.

The poster depicts Walter White lying in a hospital bed, indicating that he awoke after his supposed death in the Breaking Bad ending. The headline reads " Heisenberg," suggesting the film's name, with an August 2024 release date. The Facebook post revealed a detailed synopsis in its caption, which explained that the movie would follow Walter White escaping prison. Breaking Bad is one of the best TV shows of all time , so there's no surprise that such a poster would trigger a quick, explosive response.

Breaking Bad Is Not Getting A Heisenberg Movie Sequel In 2024

The breaking bad sequel poster is fan-made, and there is no movie planned for the franchise.

Simply put, the poster is fake. There is no Breaking Bad movie coming in 2024, nor is there one currently planned at any point in the future. In addition, AMC Films is not a real production company. Bryan Cranston, who led the Breaking Bad cast as Walter White, has returned to the role multiple times for Better Call Saul and a Super Bowl commercial where he appeared alongside Aaron Paul. However, neither of those appearances altered the Breaking Bad ending, as one took place before his death chronologically, and the other is a joke for a commercial.

It's hard to imagine any of the creative talents involved in making a well-crafted series like Breaking Bad would have any interest in such an idea.

Breaking Bad had one of the best TV show finales of all time , making the idea of retroactively changing it for a movie sequel ludicrous. Walter White evidently died in Breaking Bad , completing a five-season arc with cathartic moments in Ozymandias and Felina . Having him return for a prison break, portraying an unhinged Heisenberg, would absolutely betray that arc. It's hard to imagine any of the creative talents involved in making a well-crafted series like Breaking Bad would have any interest in such an idea.

There Are No Current Plans To Continue The Breaking Bad Franchise After Better Call Saul

After better call saul ended in 2022, breaking bad creator vince gilligan has moved on to new projects.

As of now, Better Call Saul is the final installment to the Breaking Bad franchise . The show ended in 2022 to overwhelming critical acclaim, concluding the final arcs in Vince Gilligan's world of Albuquerque crime. Realistically, there aren't many promising narratives to follow in future spin-offs, hence why Gilligan has moved on to a new project. The Breaking Bad creator is now working on a TV series for Apple TV+ which is set to star the magnificent Rhea Seehorn, who played Kim Wexler for all six seasons of Better Call Saul .

Breaking Bad

*Availability in US

Not available

Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan, follows a chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin named Walter White (Bryan Cranston) as he attempts to provide for his family following a fatal diagnosis. With nothing left to fear, White ascends to power in the world of drugs and crime, transforming the simple family man into someone known only as Heisenberg.

COMMENTS

Fast X (2023)
MOVIE REVIEW. Fast X ... "Fast X" has elicited a colossal amount of conflicting thoughts in me. On one hand "Fast X" is a nice return to the franchise's roots. On the other hand, the violence is the heaviest the franchise has had in its 11 films, not to mention there are some not so subtle jabs at Christians (particularly Catholicism ...
Movie Review: 'Fast X'
Helen Mirren, and Vin Diesel star in a scene from the movie "Fast X." The OSV News classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may not be suitable for children. (OSV News photo/Peter Mountain, Universal Pictures) Movie Review: 'Fast X' May 17, 2023 By ...
Fast X
Movie Review. Dominic Toretto is one lucky guy. ... These sincere-but-superficial references to faith go little farther, but it clearly implies that Dom is not just a Christian, but one who relies on God in any number of impossible situations. ... For fans of the franchise, Fast X is an entertaining, somewhat frustrating addition to the canon ...
Fast X (Christian Movie Review)
The movie is nearly 2.5 hours and feels like it's spinning its wheels for most of the runtime. Then it jarringly ends in the middle of the climax. Yes, a movie that already felt like one hour of plot stretched into a 2+ hour film will be bloated even further with a Part Two. A silly story about over-the-top car racing is inexplicably striving ...
FAST X
FAST X is a sequel to the FAST AND FURIOUS movie FAST FIVE. In FAST FIVE, Dom and his friends teamed up with a spy agency to bring down a Brazilian drug lord. In FAST X, the drug lord's son hatches an elaborate revenge plot against Dom, his friends and family, to make them suffer for his father's death. He lures Dom and his team to Rome ...
Fast X (Fast and Furious 10)
Check out our written review here: https://thecollision.org/fast-x-christian-movie-review/TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Intro1:55 About The Film7:03 Content to Consider9:3...
Fast X Movie Review
Fast X. By Jeffrey M. Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer. age 14+. Tired fights, crashes, explosions in first of two-parter. Movie PG-13 2023 141 minutes. Rate movie. Parents Say: age 13+ 3 reviews.
Fast X movie review & film summary (2023)
This movie's race down memory lane goes arguably nowhere, forcing fans to wait for satisfaction. It makes "Fast X" into less of a victory lap than a loud, expensive revving of engines that haven't even crossed the starting line. It just adds to the sense that this isn't so much about family or fun as it is finances.
Fast X
Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal ...
'Fast X' Review: Jason Momoa Steals Action-Stuffed Franchise Entry
Screenwriters: Justin Lin, Dan Mazeau. Rated PG-13, 2 hours 21 minutes. Considering the amount of money these films have made for Universal, and the fact that the series has gone longer than many ...
'Fast X' Review: A Massive 'Fast & Furious' Finale Explodes Into View
With Dom's son Brian (Leo Abelo Perry) in play, it's clear who Dante's eventual target is (and where the action is headed). "Fast X". Now 12 years old and able to sustain his own B-plot ...
'Fast X' review: Jason Momoa revs up the franchise engine
'Fast X' review: Jason Momoa's big bad revs up the franchise engine. Clever cameos and a delicious new villain mean this is the best F&F movie for years. 4. By Paul Bradshaw. 17th May 2023.
Fast X (2023)
Fast X: Directed by Louis Leterrier, Justin Lin. With Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster. Dom Toretto and his family are targeted by the vengeful son of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes.
'Fast X' Peacock Streaming Review: Stream It Or Skip It?
Fast X. Fast X ( now on Peacock, in addition to streaming on VOD services like Amazon Prime Video) is the first of, god help us, a planned three-film mega-finale for a series that wore all the ...
Fast X review: This franchise is running out of gas
Half of 'Fast X' is spent coasting off the glory of past franchise highlights like 'Fast Five.' The other half is trying desperately to be a superhero movie. Read EW's full review.
REVIEW: "Fast X" (2023)
REVIEW: "Fast X" (2023) While none of us can make sense of their hilariously arbitrary titles ("Fast Five", "Fast & Furious 6", "Furious 7", "The Fate of the Furious", "F9", etc.), one thing is for sure - the Fast and Furious movies have fully embraced what has made the franchise such a hit. Since taking a dramatic ...
Movie Review: A delicious Jason Momoa saves 'Fast X' from furiously
"Fast X" is, thankfully, shackled to Earth's gravity — sometimes tenuously, it must be said — but it has become almost camp, as if it breathed in too much of its own fumes. "Fast X" reaches into the fifth movie — 2011's "Fast Five" — for the seeds to tell a new story.
Fast X review
Fast X review - more overcranked nonsense with Vin Diesel and co. T he Fast and Furious series began with a souped-up, street-racing B-movie that metastasised into a behemoth Mission: Impossible ...
'Fast X' Review: Jason Momoa Steals the Show in ...
For all its flaws, Fast X is still an absurdly fun time at the movies that is ridiculous and charming in all the right ways, even at its worst. Rating: B- Fast X comes to theaters on May 19.
'Fast X' Review: A Movie That Feels Like a Head Injury
'Fast X,' starring Vin Diesel, Jason Momoa, Brie Larson, and Michelle Rodriguez, and directed by Louis Leterrier, is a decent diversion, though watching it feels like sustaining a head injury.
Fast X Movie Review for Parents
Fast X Rating & Content Info . Why is Fast X rated PG-13? Fast X is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material.. Violence: People are frequently involved in high-speed vehicle collisions which never seem to injure named characters, although they are presumably fatal for a lot of other drivers.
Fast X Review
Fast X Review. Fast X opens in theaters on May 19, 2023. Universal doesn't have X-wings, they have cars that sometimes fly. They don't have superheroes, they have street racers from Los ...
'Fast X' Review: Even More Ludacris and Exhausting Than You Think
Ludacris and Tyrese half-heartedly engage in ball-busting banter, Jason Statham flashes a few grimaces, John Cena does his earnestly goofy routine, and Scott Eastwood and Brie Larsen (the latter ...
Fast X: Part 2 (2025)
Fast X: Part 2: Directed by Louis Leterrier. With Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Momoa, Nathalie Emmanuel. Plot kept under wraps.
Christian Bale's New Movie Proves How Good His 2008 Movie's Recast
The Bride! is a 2025 horror romance film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. The film is set in 1930s Chicago, where Dr. Euphronius creates Frankenstein a companion. Christian Bale stars as Frankenstein alongside Annette Benning, Jessie Buckley, Penélope Cruz, and Peter Sarsgaard. Director. Maggie Gyllenhaal. Release Date. October 3, 2025.
Is Breaking Bad Really Getting A Heisenberg Sequel Movie In 2024? Not
A poster has surfaced for a 2024 Breaking Bad Heisenberg movie sequel, bringing its legitimacy into question. For over a decade since the show's ending, audiences have inquired regarding the future of Breaking Bad characters, or at least the select few who survived.The prequel series Better Call Saul offered a few glimpses throughout its run, and the sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie ...

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