‘FAST X’ RETURNS TO EARTH
AFTER THE GANG DROVE A CAR IN SPACE LAST TIME OUT, THE ACTION FRANCHISE LOOKS TO REGAIN ITS FOOTING WITH A THRILLING NEW BAD GUY AND WONDERFULLY ABSURD STUNTS
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. But a warning: It careens to an end without a payoff, a more dangerous stunt than any in the movies themselves.
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’s character 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 workingclass 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 alwayssleeveless Diesel. The filmmakers usually just prop him up in front of a wall of family photos and he stares at them intently.
New director Louis Leterrier 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 fistfights, a car smashing two helicopters, remote-controlled cars (big and small), vehicles that leap into the sky like salmon, and a plane that drops a 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 re-creates 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?