'Fast X' feels like sitting in traffic
Universal
“Mission: Impossible—For Dummies” continues, gaslighting action movie fans as it delivers garbage and labels it fun, taking extreme stupidity as seriously as possible and mixing it with an awful sense of humor and a belief that cliches and platitudes are moving explorations of family bonds. The main characters are always exceeded by the supporting ones, which really creates emotional investment as you itch for this annoying person and then that annoying person to go away.
I will never understand how we got to part 10.
If you’re still reading, “Fast X” finds Dom (Vin Diesel) and co. squaring off against Dante (Jason Momoa), who is obsessed with revenge and suffering and played by an actor who feels like he’s in a different movie than everyone else. At least Momoa’s performance lends scenes a degree of impact and pizzazz; whether it’s an over-the-top action sequence that just feels like a stunt team overcompensating and makes you aware of the CGI-enhanced impossibility you’re watching (rather than a smooth, impressive display that brings you into the movie) or a conversation between characters for whom sentences are not a strength, “Fast X” (which apparently is just the first of the two-part finale here?) is tiresome in all the ways it should kick ass. From the mediocre banter between Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris “Ludacris”) to Letty and Han again contributing nothing (it’s not too late to recast Michelle Rodriguez and Sung Kang, nobody would care) to Dom’s perpetual dopey intensity, it’s just hard to understand what about this is supposed to be entertaining, or even watchable in the slightest.
It’s not all lousy, of course. A few set pieces are genuinely cool (including John Cena as Uncle Jakob and Leo Abelo Perry as Dom’s son Brian escaping a plane in a different aerial vehicle), and all the family family family family talk occasionally stumbles into an OK moment of close bonds rising above petty squabbles or even city-destroying mistakes. But even the presence of Brie Larson as the daughter of Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) can’t account for the film’s exhausting inability to create momentum or weave together its narrative pieces, disconnected around the world. As a result, “Fast X” feels like it goes on forever, as (for the most part) everything the good guys do works and nothing the bad guys do does, regardless of how deliberate or insane the idea.
When one of the heroes in a movie does something impressive, you should feel awe, and when a wild action sequence is accomplished, it should make you say “whoa.” In all areas, the reaction “Fast X” elicits is just “nope.”
D+
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