Fast X review: the wheels have fallen off

Pedal-to-the-floor nonsense of the smashiest vehicular order continues in Fast X, but it's also one of the franchise's weaker efforts. The supposed "beginning of the end" for the franchise may make you smile at maximalist rubber-burnin' stupidity and guffaw aplenty, but clocking in over two hours and 20 minutes, the tank nears empty sooner than you'd hope. 

An overly cluttered story executes like a toddler with too many toys who can't decide which to play with and loses itself to the ill-fated franchise pitfall of thinking too far into the future. It's brimming with series hallmarks from Corona toasts to emphatic family values, only to structure itself like a two-hour first act that smashes into the credits like Wile E. Coyote into a painted-on fakeout tunnel entrance.

Writers Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin do their best to handle Fast franchise continuity held together with Scotch tape. The sins of Dominic Toretto's (Vin Diesel) past return in the form of wild card Dante (Jason Momoa), the flamboyant son of Fast Five drug lord Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida). Dante seeks vengeance for his papa's death, hellbent on watching Dom suffer an eternity's worth of torment. That means hunting down and killing anyone who's ever aided Dom, from blood family to his chosen siblings, with the ultimate goal of reaching Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry) as the ultimate dagger to Dom's heart.

Fast X upholds the franchise's upward trajectory of ridiculousness with absurd pride. Whether that's an intense sequence where Dom plays Rocket League through Rome with a flaming bomb or when Dom drives himself and Little Brian down an exploding dam like it's a sledding hill. Director Louis Leterrier took the reins when Lin vacated the position and doesn't fumble responsibilities when punching audiences with Nitrous-fueled action scenes where cars become anything from getaway transportation to usable weaponry. Fast X revs its engines loudly — that's not the issue.

There's an incompleteness to Fast X that resembles marketing material more than a complete cinematic journey. It's a blatantly unfinished product to an embarrassing degree as Fast 11 is confirmed, with a possible Fast 12 being teased. Dom's crew is scattered across the globe from Antarctica to London, Rio de Janeiro to classified international hideous, which causes the story to jump around from location to location as a clip show of character introductions (and reintroductions) squeezed between metal-crushing mechanical mayhem. 

Fast X would have enough trouble focusing on the core familiars before the inclusion of newbies like spiked-shoed Tess (Brie Larson) and tactical bruiser Aimes (Alan Ritchson), or the resurfacing of old frenemies like Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). As is, characters barely find enough time to squeeze out dialogue past an overserious monologue and a catchphrase.

Now, I'm all here for hot nonsense blockbusters, and Fast X does not fail in broad entertainment value. Jason Momoa finds notoriety as an outstandingly out-of-his-gourd villain that mixes the Joker's psychotic dark humor with tropical linen wears and gooberish unpredictability. John Cena ditches everything about the sterner, stiffer Jakob Toretto from F9 to become the goofier and more lovable "Uncle Jakob" in Fast X. While hard to take the film's earnestness with a straight face, that doesn't negate the humor of Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej's (Ludacris) bonding through bickering, or Letty's (Michelle Rodriguez) forever "Can I just shoot them?" face. It's just a shame how with so many relationships to maintain and new allegiances to form, emotions ring hollow as the movie becomes a celebrity guessing game of who will appear next (especially since deaths no longer matter).

Of course, you're here to watch Dom's elite team of drivers and daredevils defy gravity once more. Fast X doesn't disappoint, as muscle cars again "leap" from aircrafts or toss around helicopters that foolishly try to separate Toretto's tires from the pavement. It all meets the visual standards of Fast titles that go "vroom vroom, boom boom" as the camera glides through passenger windows to set the anticipation of impending street races before more explosion.

However, unattractive background green screens are used too frequently, and there's way more computerized ugliness compared to practical spectacle. Locations like the carnivalesque Rio de Janeiro pop with celebratory colors, unlike The Agency's uninspired den of floating screens that are entirely post-production additions. Blurry mountain ranges and washed-out skyscapes stick out in this slurry of digital landscape fill-ins behind Dom and others, which translates poorly in a blockbuster of this caliber.

That may be why despite firing-on-all-cylinders, Fast X is a frustrating chapter that plays like hype material for what's to come later. Moments of unbelievable action extravagance exist as only a Fast movie can imagine, but not in a way that makes you pound the hood of your car in uncontrollable excitement. Nostalgia grabs and reveals registers disappointingly as a less well-oiled machine propels a Fast flick missing the usual obscene amounts of family-style thrills over substance.

Fast X is never better than when highways full of "car-nage" resemble playtime with Hot Wheels collections, but it's more often worse as its outlandish ensemble approach fades from charm into parody without the self-awareness to pump those breaks early enough to course correct.