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Update: May 16, 2023
Dragonlord’s Review of FAST X (No Spoilers)
Bottom Line: Despite the amazing action sequences and fun cast of characters, Fast X is ruined by its frustrating reliance in its over-the-top ridiculousness and its tepid box office forecast proves that fans are slowly getting tired of the franchise.
The Fast & Furious franchise has always been good popcorn entertainment that provided outstanding car action scenes and likable characters that grew on you over the years. I like all the first eight F&F movies to varying degrees with Fast Five being the best of them all. The second half of the series (Fast Five to Fate of the Furious) have always flirted with the edge of acceptability in action logic and have produced something that was semi-believable enough that your brain reluctantly gave a pass to whatever hi-jinx happening on screen. F9 fucked that delicate balance and jumped the shark with its laughably far-fetched moments.
Fast X opens with a recap of the finale of Fast Five and retroactively inserting Jason Momoa’s character, Dante Reyes, in the story. It’s a good prologue as we are treated to the classic vault demolition derby scene from Fast Five and reminded us how good that action scene was and gave a glimpse of hope that this movie was going to deliver. It did not. Some got a kick out of Momoa’s flamboyant villain but I just found his Joker-wannabe persona too annoying. He’s trying too hard to be kooky and funny. Momoa’s rendition reminds me of the time in the early 1990s when almost every villain tried to copy Jack Nicholson’s Joker after Batman (1989) came out. Momoa is channeling another Joker impersonation (Heath Ledger version this time) as Dante is omnipresent, magically appearing anywhere globally to thwart the heroes’ plans.
This film is not as bad as F9 but the same problems that ruined the last installment are unfortunately still here to some degree. The most frustrating part of Fast X is that it did not need to utilize these over-the-top logic-defying moments. Take for example the Rome set piece early in the movie. The action sequence was great until they had to insert at the end where Dom’s car jumps from a bridge, then smashes a cliffside, then crash lands 50 feet to the ground, and speeds away like nothing happened. It’s just lazy writing. Show us some stakes. You can give us an incredible death-defying stunt, we will happily accept it, but show us some sort of realistic consequences afterwards.
One of the problems of Fast X is that Vin Diesel is treating the franchise as his own superhero movie where his character Dominic Toretto is the most bad-ass human being in the entire world able to take on elite special forces easily. His character has now transcended to superhuman where he displays incredible feats of strength like flipping a car with one hand. Dom’s muscle car is his Iron Man suit, capable of engineering implausible performances one after another.
With a massive supporting cast on hand, all the characters are given something to do. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is imprisoned and must team up with Cipher (Charlize Theron) to escape. Han (Sung Kang), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) are given their own side adventure but it’s just uninteresting and their squabbles are just forced and silly. But the more enjoyable side journey was with Jakob (John Cena), the former baddie turned good, who is in charge of protecting Dom’s son. I was surprised how likable Cena was in here and how amusing all his scenes were.
This is the Avengers: Infinity War of the Fast & Furious franchise where almost all the characters from Fast 1 to 9 show up and it also ends in a cliffhanger (albeit a ho-hum one). Fast X’s story is too repetitive from the previous films, utilizing the same revenge plot on Dom’s family all over again. With each Fast installment, the stakes as well as my enjoyment keep dwindling down due to the absurdity factor and cartoonish vibe, not to mention that no character seems to stay dead. I love Han but they should not have resurrected him in F9. When they reveal another beloved deceased character coming back to life at the end of Fast X, it just solicited an eye-rolling for me instead of a celebration. Vin, if you don’t take your franchise seriously, neither will the fans.
RATING: 5.5 stars
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Update: February 10, 2013
Jason Momoa is Out for Revenge in Action-Packed First Trailer for FAST X
_____________________________________________________
Update: November 7, 2021
Vin Diesel Asks Dwayne Johnson to Return as Hobbs in the Final Fast & Furious Installments
Vin Diesel on Sunday asked Dwayne Johnson to make peace and return to the Fast and Furious franchise.
The two superstars had an epic falling out in 2016 when they clashed for the last time on the set of The Fate of the Furious. The two mega action stars made their first onscreen appearance together in 2011’s Fast Five. They have been exchanging barbs in the media ever since Johnson made an Instagram post in 2016 referring to Diesel and in which he questioned his professionalism.
However, it seems Diesel is ready to put the drama behind them.
“My little brother Dwayne… the time has come,” Diesel began on an Instagram post. “The world awaits the finale of Fast 10. As you know, my children refer to you as Uncle Dwayne in my house. There is not a holiday that goes by that they and you don’t send well wishes… but the time has come. Legacy awaits.”
Continued Diesel, “I told you years ago that I was going to fulfill my promise to [Paul Walker]. I swore that we would reach and manifest the best Fast in the finale that is 10! I say this out of love… but you must show up, do not leave the franchise idle you have a very important role to play. Hobbs can’t be played by no other. I hope that you rise to the occasion and fulfill your destiny.”
Johnson could not be immediately reached for comment.
The most recent exchange in their long-running beef happened when Diesel in June said during a Men’s Health interview that his interactions with Johnson were from a place of “tough love.”
“It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character,” Diesel said. “My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be. As a producer to say, Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know — Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic. That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”
Johnson, of course, responded.
“I laughed and I laughed hard,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think everyone had a laugh at that. And I’ll leave it at that. And that I’ve wished them well. I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast & Furious movies they do that will be without me.”
Following their falling out, Johnson has gone on to star in the spinoff The Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, opposite Jason Statham. That film went on to gross $759 million globally in 2019. Diesel’s latest Fast installment, Fast 9, was released earlier this year and grossed $721 million globally, making it the top-grossing Hollywood film of the pandemic.
Diesel is attached for Fast 10 and Fast 11, from filmmaker Justin Lin. Fast 10 is set for an April 7, 2023 release date from Universal. Lin has described Fast 9, 10 and 11 as being chapters in a trilogy that will close out the main Fast franchise, which dates back to 2001 and made Diesel a global star.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...n-diesel-dwayne-johnson-franchise-1235043921/
Dragonlord’s Review of FAST X (No Spoilers)
Bottom Line: Despite the amazing action sequences and fun cast of characters, Fast X is ruined by its frustrating reliance in its over-the-top ridiculousness and its tepid box office forecast proves that fans are slowly getting tired of the franchise.
The Fast & Furious franchise has always been good popcorn entertainment that provided outstanding car action scenes and likable characters that grew on you over the years. I like all the first eight F&F movies to varying degrees with Fast Five being the best of them all. The second half of the series (Fast Five to Fate of the Furious) have always flirted with the edge of acceptability in action logic and have produced something that was semi-believable enough that your brain reluctantly gave a pass to whatever hi-jinx happening on screen. F9 fucked that delicate balance and jumped the shark with its laughably far-fetched moments.
Fast X opens with a recap of the finale of Fast Five and retroactively inserting Jason Momoa’s character, Dante Reyes, in the story. It’s a good prologue as we are treated to the classic vault demolition derby scene from Fast Five and reminded us how good that action scene was and gave a glimpse of hope that this movie was going to deliver. It did not. Some got a kick out of Momoa’s flamboyant villain but I just found his Joker-wannabe persona too annoying. He’s trying too hard to be kooky and funny. Momoa’s rendition reminds me of the time in the early 1990s when almost every villain tried to copy Jack Nicholson’s Joker after Batman (1989) came out. Momoa is channeling another Joker impersonation (Heath Ledger version this time) as Dante is omnipresent, magically appearing anywhere globally to thwart the heroes’ plans.
This film is not as bad as F9 but the same problems that ruined the last installment are unfortunately still here to some degree. The most frustrating part of Fast X is that it did not need to utilize these over-the-top logic-defying moments. Take for example the Rome set piece early in the movie. The action sequence was great until they had to insert at the end where Dom’s car jumps from a bridge, then smashes a cliffside, then crash lands 50 feet to the ground, and speeds away like nothing happened. It’s just lazy writing. Show us some stakes. You can give us an incredible death-defying stunt, we will happily accept it, but show us some sort of realistic consequences afterwards.
One of the problems of Fast X is that Vin Diesel is treating the franchise as his own superhero movie where his character Dominic Toretto is the most bad-ass human being in the entire world able to take on elite special forces easily. His character has now transcended to superhuman where he displays incredible feats of strength like flipping a car with one hand. Dom’s muscle car is his Iron Man suit, capable of engineering implausible performances one after another.
With a massive supporting cast on hand, all the characters are given something to do. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is imprisoned and must team up with Cipher (Charlize Theron) to escape. Han (Sung Kang), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) are given their own side adventure but it’s just uninteresting and their squabbles are just forced and silly. But the more enjoyable side journey was with Jakob (John Cena), the former baddie turned good, who is in charge of protecting Dom’s son. I was surprised how likable Cena was in here and how amusing all his scenes were.
This is the Avengers: Infinity War of the Fast & Furious franchise where almost all the characters from Fast 1 to 9 show up and it also ends in a cliffhanger (albeit a ho-hum one). Fast X’s story is too repetitive from the previous films, utilizing the same revenge plot on Dom’s family all over again. With each Fast installment, the stakes as well as my enjoyment keep dwindling down due to the absurdity factor and cartoonish vibe, not to mention that no character seems to stay dead. I love Han but they should not have resurrected him in F9. When they reveal another beloved deceased character coming back to life at the end of Fast X, it just solicited an eye-rolling for me instead of a celebration. Vin, if you don’t take your franchise seriously, neither will the fans.
RATING: 5.5 stars
_____________________________________________________
Update: February 10, 2013
Jason Momoa is Out for Revenge in Action-Packed First Trailer for FAST X
_____________________________________________________
Update: November 7, 2021
Vin Diesel Asks Dwayne Johnson to Return as Hobbs in the Final Fast & Furious Installments
Vin Diesel on Sunday asked Dwayne Johnson to make peace and return to the Fast and Furious franchise.
The two superstars had an epic falling out in 2016 when they clashed for the last time on the set of The Fate of the Furious. The two mega action stars made their first onscreen appearance together in 2011’s Fast Five. They have been exchanging barbs in the media ever since Johnson made an Instagram post in 2016 referring to Diesel and in which he questioned his professionalism.
However, it seems Diesel is ready to put the drama behind them.
“My little brother Dwayne… the time has come,” Diesel began on an Instagram post. “The world awaits the finale of Fast 10. As you know, my children refer to you as Uncle Dwayne in my house. There is not a holiday that goes by that they and you don’t send well wishes… but the time has come. Legacy awaits.”
Continued Diesel, “I told you years ago that I was going to fulfill my promise to [Paul Walker]. I swore that we would reach and manifest the best Fast in the finale that is 10! I say this out of love… but you must show up, do not leave the franchise idle you have a very important role to play. Hobbs can’t be played by no other. I hope that you rise to the occasion and fulfill your destiny.”
Johnson could not be immediately reached for comment.
The most recent exchange in their long-running beef happened when Diesel in June said during a Men’s Health interview that his interactions with Johnson were from a place of “tough love.”
“It was a tough character to embody, the Hobbs character,” Diesel said. “My approach at the time was a lot of tough love to assist in getting that performance where it needed to be. As a producer to say, Okay, we’re going to take Dwayne Johnson, who’s associated with wrestling, and we’re going to force this cinematic world, audience members, to regard his character as someone that they don’t know — Hobbs hits you like a ton of bricks. That’s something that I’m proud of, that aesthetic. That took a lot of work. We had to get there and sometimes, at that time, I could give a lot of tough love. Not Felliniesque, but I would do anything I’d have to do in order to get performances in anything I’m producing.”
Johnson, of course, responded.
“I laughed and I laughed hard,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I think everyone had a laugh at that. And I’ll leave it at that. And that I’ve wished them well. I wish them well on Fast 9. And I wish them the best of luck on Fast 10 and Fast 11 and the rest of the Fast & Furious movies they do that will be without me.”
Following their falling out, Johnson has gone on to star in the spinoff The Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, opposite Jason Statham. That film went on to gross $759 million globally in 2019. Diesel’s latest Fast installment, Fast 9, was released earlier this year and grossed $721 million globally, making it the top-grossing Hollywood film of the pandemic.
Diesel is attached for Fast 10 and Fast 11, from filmmaker Justin Lin. Fast 10 is set for an April 7, 2023 release date from Universal. Lin has described Fast 9, 10 and 11 as being chapters in a trilogy that will close out the main Fast franchise, which dates back to 2001 and made Diesel a global star.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...n-diesel-dwayne-johnson-franchise-1235043921/
