Fast X, the tenth movie in the Fast and Furious franchise, just released to theaters and the reviews are coming in pretty intensely. Now, of course, being a fan of action movies like John Wick (check out the John Wick: Chapter 4 review, by the way), I went to see Fast X. I didn’t necessarily have any high expectations going in from the trailers, but I figured I’d give it a chance. Fast X is a hilariously stupid movie at many points, but I actually enjoyed a lot of parts of it. Let’s dive deeper into the review though:
What is Fast X About?
Fast X sees Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) as he tries to fight against Dante Ryes (Jason Momoa). Dante was nothing more than revenge against Dom for the death of his father due to a heist by Brian and Dom nearly 11 years ago.
Dante enjoys causing chaos and lures in several members of Dom’s crew to Rome to pull off a heist, posing as the Agency. Unfortunately for the crew, the trap lands them as public enemy number one and they are labeled terrorists.
Dom must now fight Dante and stop his chaos. That’s pretty much what the movie is about.
The Pros: Jason Momoa Was Amazing
I think the most memorable part about Fast X for me had to have been Dante Reyes. Jason Momoa pulled off that performance with so much pizzaz, that I couldn’t help but enjoy all of his scenes. Momoa’s character did feel like a bit of a Joker-style character, but his performance was delightful.
Dante Reyes is an eccentric, bizarre guy that relishes inflicting chaos, coordinates his outfit colors and his nails, and wants Dom to suffer more than anything. His quotes and lines are probably the only ones I remember, to be honest.
The action was pretty exciting and the stunts were fun to watch. I mean, this is a movie focused on cars, so I would expect the car scenes to be exciting enough.
The Cons: Unfortunately, A lot of Them
Look, I get that action movies sometimes overlook stuff in order to make room for the thing you’re there to watch, which is action, but there are some glaring cons with Fast X.
Firstly, the acting was pretty atrocious. Jason Momoa was pretty much the only good performance in the entire film. I enjoyed John Cena’s acting, it wasn’t too bad. But other than that, the acting was just really bad. The characters were clearly just reading lines from a script for most of the scenes, and sitting through the exposition stuff was hard.
Second thing, the CGI was really bad. I mean it. The CGI was godawful. I don’t know if it’s as bad as Marvel movies have gotten, but it was pretty bad. The CGI budget wasn’t very high, let me just put it at that.
Third, the pacing was weird. There were lots of cuts and jumping around from place to place, and the events all felt very perfectly lined up without much rhyme or reason. I just didn’t think the pacing was too well thought out.
As another note, a lot of the comedy and jokes fell flat. Roman and Tej just weren’t very funny characters. I could tell that they were attempting to crack some jokes, but a lot of the humor wasn’t funny. I was flat-faced for most of their scenes together.
Some Extra Details to Mention
I did note some pretty cool cameos in the film, which include Josh Dun and Pete Davidson. Pete Davidson was actually quite funny in that scene, but he’s a comedian so I’d hope he’s funny. Josh Dun was just a funny little thing I noticed and got excited about but nobody else in the theater seemed to care, so I maintained my excitement to my own brain.
The Final Verdict
Overall, Fast X is a pretty stupid movie. I can’t really sugarcoat this point. However, despite its stupidity, I enjoyed it. The action was good. Jason Momoa was good. I honestly would recommend you see it just for Momoa’s performance. It was pretty funny to watch.
However, I don’t think I would give this movie more than a 6/10. It was mediocre and average for the most part and it did include some golden moments, so for those moments, I’d say a 6/10 is fair.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
