Way back in 2001, if you had told me when I came out of the
theater after watching The Fast and The Furious that I would be watching the tenth
installment in that franchise in 2023 – and absolutely looking forward to the
eleventh, I am not sure I would have believed you – and I loved that first
one. After all, that movie involved a
cop going undercover with a street racing gang to bust them for stealing
DVD/VCR combos. To date, the Fast &
Furious franchise has spawned ten films, with two more on the way, one
spin-off, amusement park rides, games, and could honestly go on and on. There
is not really a secret to the franchise’s success, it is pretty straight
forward globe-trotting action set pieces with a central theme of family, both
chosen and blood - who can argue with that?
In this episode of the Fast saga, we catch up to the Torettos as they are enjoying barbeque, family & Coronas at the house in L.A., continuing their trend of letting the antagonist from the previous film be a good guy in the next one. Suddenly, their old nemesis Cypher shows up to let them know that a new threat has arisen. If you remember way back in Fast Five, Brian and Dom drove a drug dealer’s safe through much of Rio de Janeiro, causing huge amounts of damage in a chase that ended with the drug dealer losing his life. The son of that dealer, Dante, is now coming for the Toretto crew and he is particularly vicious and crazy. Along the way, Dom and the others have to pick up materials, allies, a couple enemies, all while stopping this new threat and trying to keep their family safe.
I loved this movie – it is completely over the top bonkers
nonsense and knows it. And yet, this one
is a little more grounded than the last one.
This one is directed by Louis Leterrier, a French action director out of
the Luc Besson stable. He has done some things I really loved (The Transporter,
Unleashed, the Incredible Hulk), some things that were okay (Now You See Me),
and some things I have not liked (the Clash of the Titans remake). In Fast X, he takes the franchise back to
mainly car chases and action sequences – and yes, those have been key to all of
the movies, but admittedly, in the last one, they drove a car in space.
There's so much in terms of cast, it's tough to talk about all of them, but the family core group all continue to be wonderful, even if by now we have so many lead characters not everyone is getting enough screen time. Thank goodness Han is back for real, I love that Mia gets one badass action sequence per movie, but it's too bad she then has to pretend to go back to Brian and their kids. Tej and Roman continue to get on each others' nerves, Ramsey still has nearly nothing to do. While John Cena’s Jakob Toretto was an interesting foil last film, he felt stiff and forced. Here he is wonderful. He seems to have been let off the leash and completely understands the movie he is in.
Honestly, most of the cast has a good time and plays these flicks with a wink&nod. It’s just Vin Diesel that takes them a little too seriously – but you need that at the center of the movie so that everyone else can be crazy. Also - we have the fantastic addition of Rita Moreno as Grandma Toretto (I sort of hope we get to see an action sequence with her and Helen Mirren's Queenie in the next movie).
The addition of Brie Larson as a new Nobody – the daughter of Kurt Russel’s character from a few movies ago – helps keep the Torettos involved with The Agency (who knows who or what they are, or what goals they have). And we get to add in the wonderful Alan Ritchson as a new Agency heavy hand, making this the first movie I can think of with two Aquamen in it.
And speaking of crazy – what a glorious addition Jason Momoa is. It is as if he was given the sole direction of ‘have fun and bring complete chaos’ and my goodness – he is extra in every way. It lightens up the movie while bringing a definite threat. That dude is living his absolute best life.
Overall, I really loved this one, maybe more than the last couple and I really liked the last one. If I had to rank them, it would look like this: 1, 5, 10, 9, 6, 4, 7, 8, 2, 3. Hobbs & Shaw being a spin off is not in that count and honestly, that ranking is basically arbitrary anyway. They’re all silly and wonderful! Grab your family, popcorn, and a Corona and check it out.
9 out of 10 – but really, shouldn’t it be 10 out of 12 since two more of these are guaranteed on their way?
No comments:
Post a Comment