‘Fast X’ made me furious: The latest installment shows the franchise has run out of gas

I’ve liked a couple of Fast & Furious movies. The first one was about car racing, and that was about it, with solid results. By Furious 7, cars were jumping in between skyscrapers, and I was all in on that hilarity. F9 wasn’t very good, but it did have them floating around space in makeshift spacesuits, and I have to applaud how ridiculous that was.

To be kind, the film series has been uneven. To be honest, it’s mostly been garbage.

With Fast X, it’s become clear that the franchise can no longer top itself—although it tries to, in exhausting ways. This movie is all over the place, literally, as it travels around the world with all kinds of locations blasting onto the screen … Rome, L.A., Vin Diesel’s butthole, etc. It’s also all over the place script-wise, with plot threads smashing into each other.

The movies no longer feel like a continuing franchise, but more of a joke upon itself. They should seriously just go the Airplane, Hot Shots and Naked Gun route next time, and satirize themselves and car-chase movies with honest attempts at laughs, instead of garnering all of the unintentional ones this outrageously funky film registers.

Any attempt to summarize the plot here would be an exercise in futility, because said plot is a tentacled virus shooting in every possible direction, with no sense of focus or true purpose, other than to make things go fast and occasionally explode.

Basically, anybody who has previously been in one of these movies shows up here, including Mr. Excitement himself, Vin Diesel, along with John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Sung Kang, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham and a few others I won’t reveal, because I don’t want to spoil your fun. Actually, I shouldn’t be concerned about spoiling your fun; the director, Louis Leterrier, does a fine enough job doing that himself.

New to the party are Brie Larson as some sort of indistinguishable secret agent, and Jason Momoa, the film’s attempt at an original villain. He’s Dante, a man seeking revenge for the death of his father in one of the previous movies, and a frequent wearer of genie pants. Momoa tries to bring life to the party as the Furious version of the Joker or Riddler. He maybe gets a laugh or two, but he mostly annoys, as he’s often too over the top—even for this movie.

Dante makes a few jokes about Toretto’s barbecue gatherings, sort of riffing on how the Furious movies have become about family. If I have to hear Toretto (Diesel) mumble “it’s all about duh famm-lee” one more time, I’m going to dropkick the movie screen. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to accomplish that, but I’m going to do it.

Fast X was originally supposed to be the last one, but it most certainly is not. There is the mother of all cliffhangers, and I am certain it will piss you off. It pissed me off, because no matter how bad it was, I will now have to check in when the next one comes out (supposedly in 2025) and see what the heck happened. It’s sort of a job responsibility.

Seriously, screw these stupid movies. They got boring once Dom got all sentimental, and it became all about duh FAMM-LEEE.