Supposedly, Universal’s marquee Fast & Furious franchise is approaching the end of the road. I say, “Supposedly”, because it’s extremely doubtful that Universal, alongside lead star, Vin Diesel, will simply allow the franchise to retire with whatever dignity it has left. Even as an apparent climax seems to be in sight for the so-called ‘Fast Saga’, we’ve already had announcements of spin-offs and other related projects to come after its conclusion. This is no doubt before the inevitable reboot that will eventually take things back to square one, possibly with Vin Diesel returning as a geriatric Dom Toretto so he can prove that he will always be the greatest street racer/criminal-for-hire/family man/revenge survivor that the world has ever seen, even long after he’s killed in a CGI explosion. Not that this has made anyone else stay dead within this semi-esteemed B-movie action franchise.

It likely wouldn’t be controversial to point out that many moviegoers, myself included, are starting to feel a bit burned out on the same old formula of high-speed vehicular tomfoolery and barbecue-embracing found families of lawbreakers, who act just like us when they’re not behind the wheel of a souped-up supercar. There was something addictively wholesome, yet also lovably gonzo about the ‘Fast Saga’ once upon a time. During the early-to-mid 2010’s especially, Fast & Furious truly was a golden cinematic brand that could do no wrong. Love it or hate it, it amassed an enormous audience, an even bigger box office haul, and the pedigree of becoming Universal’s top-grossing and most popular original IP, easily rivaling the likes of fellow Universal juggernauts such as Jurassic Park/World and Despicable Me/Minions. Sadly, those days now appear to be behind the never-ending race that Vin Diesel built, at least in terms of moviegoer reception.

I previously speculated during my rather unimpressed F9: The Fast Saga review that the loss of the franchise’s regular writer, Chris Morgan (who has yet again flaked on Fast X after originally being hired back to write its script), may have something to do with why this series feels so out of gas at this point. The loss of its most frequent and beloved director, Justin Lin hasn’t helped matters either, with Lin also ultimately bowing out of directing duties on Fast X (yet another re-branded sequel that refuses to decide on steady nomenclature for these movies’ titles), forcing Transporter 2 and The Incredible Hulk director, Louis Leterrier to take up directing duties instead. Hey, Leterrier directed a Transporter movie, and that’s about fast cars and charismatic bald leading men, so surely things could be worse, right?

Well, apparently not. Somehow, Fast X is an even bigger gaggle of self-parodying nonsense than F9: The Fast Saga was before it. Without Lin and Morgan attached, and with Vin Diesel now seemingly exercising limitless creative control over the Fast & Furious franchise, Fast X quickly becomes an unmoored, convoluted disaster, yet one that’s also strangely rehashed and repetitive somehow. I almost miss the shark-jumping moment from this franchise finally accepting the dare to go into space during F9: The Fast Saga, even though that was also a tired, thankless sequel that didn’t need to exist. What’s left then? Not much, as it turns out, with Fast X kicking off its supposed two-part finale plot on a lot of pomp and no real circumstance.

A core tenet of the Fast & Furious franchise has always been found families. I can appreciate that. It’s something that’s clearly resonated with many moviegoers, and the lead characters still aren’t universally devoid of charming moments in Fast X. For the most part however, it’s nonetheless painfully evident that all of these returning lead characters have nowhere to go in terms of interesting development at this point, resulting in a lot of over-the-top action and quipping to try and keep audience attention.

Fast X’s action remains workable, granted. Said action is utterly absurd, but then again, the action in this franchise has been absurd for over a decade now. Why should I be shocked by sequences like the Fast Family chasing a giant, cartoonish bomb throughout the streets of Italy? We had to top F9: The Fast Saga’s car magnets somehow, and I guess Universal’s best way to do that was taking some inspiration from Looney Tunes. Why not?

Fast X tries to get around its ineffectual stakes by tossing in a bunch of new characters as well, while dragging back every legacy personality it can logically justify, along with a couple that it can’t, but hear they are anyway. I can’t go into much detail without spoilers, but I will say that if Fast X is resorting to a head-scratching Pete Davidson cameo to try and continue developing its lead characters, something might have gone wrong in the writing process. That’s impressive for a movie series that has gotten away with proudly hokey, ludicrous writing for most of its duration at this point.

“Fast X went off the rails the second it decided its characters never need to take off their plot armour.”

This makes it pretty much impossible to care about new characters like Brie Larson’s Tess, the latest addition to the Nobody family, which still includes Scott Eastwood’s Little Nobody, though I guess Kurt Russell wisely stayed out of this stinker. New foils like Daniela Melchior’s Isabel and Alan Ritchson’s Aimes also purely exist to keep boosting the ego of Dom, as he outwits and outlasts anything that’s thrown at him, because what else would you expect him to do, struggle? Even as Aimes turns the entirety of Mr. Nobody’s agency against Dom and co., now separated and on the run across the world, it’s tough to escape the feeling that we’ve just done this dance too many times already. This isn’t the first time that the Fast Family has been hunted on multiple fronts, and it’s not the first time that an old enemy has come back for revenge, but more on that later.

Perhaps this is part of the issue with making your protagonists such unstoppable luck sponges, a fact finally acknowledged directly during a joke speech in F9: The Fast Saga. When death or failure no longer means anything (a fact made more apparent than ever by some of Fast X’s truly baffling character appearances), and when characters never suffer more than minor inconveniences and dings to their reputation, even during supposedly life-threatening moments throughout this movie, what’s left to invest in? Fast X went off the rails the second it decided its characters never need to take off their plot armour. You can distract us with as many impressive car chases as you like, and sure, some of them do still have legitimately cool moments (even that otherwise ridiculous bomb chase), but that only goes so far when the characters feel like they passed the end of the road years ago.

Bless Jason Momoa, who single-handedly salvages at least some of Fast X with his bonkers, revenge-seeking drug heir, Dante Reyes, the heretofore unmentioned son of Fast Five’s main antagonist, Hernan Reyes. Momoa at least is in on the joke that Fast & Furious has become, stretching to surprisingly novel acting territory as a fast-talking, deranged mastermind with a lavendar Impala, one that looks and sounds like he wandered out of the fastest streets in Gotham City.

I don’t choose that Gotham metaphor impulsively either. Momoa operates like the Joker for the Fast & Furious universe, alternating between playful, insane, menacing and violent seemingly on a whim. He’s apathetic toward his inexplicably endless henchmen, monologues to himself while causing ridiculous amounts of destruction, muses dark philosophy to Dom about the futility of his ideals, and always seems to be one step ahead of the protagonists, no matter what they throw at him. In an action movie franchise that’s slowly started to drown in pretense and family melodrama, Momoa’s Dante is exactly the shot in the arm that it needs to stay somewhat afloat, with Dante being a true agent of chaos that confidently embraces his destiny as a climactic cartoon villain.

Momoa’s Dante trolling the hell out of the Fast Family marks pretty much the last frontier of villains for these people to face by this point. That’s why it’s disheartening that Dante’s backstory is tied up in yet another tired family revenge plot. Putting aside the fact that Dante took a ridiculous amount of time to put his ultimate plan against the Fast Family together (to the point where it even distractingly buckles the Fast & Furious timeline a bit), the fact that no one has even heard of him before now, despite Dante supposedly being instrumental to some of the events of highlight installment, Fast Five behind the scenes, only serves to illustrate how clumsily retconned he is into this franchise’s canon.

I would almost prefer if Dante went full Joker instead, having no established ties to legacy villains, and instead just being some sort of surprise presence that still manages to represent the sum culmination of the Fast Family’s previous actions. Dante forcing a tie-in to Fast Five feels all the more confusing when Charlize Theron’s Cipher and Alan Ritchson’s Aimes also serve as antagonists in Fast X, despite Cipher seemingly appearing to switch sides early on. There are just far too many villains fighting for attention within a storyline that’s too half-baked for any of them to sustain. Among Fast X’s foes however, Momoa’s Dante feels most acceptable, simply because Momoa actually plays a legitimately fun baddie, even if his Fast Five connections feel forced and unnecessary.

It would seem that two-part blockbuster finales are no longer being limited to adaptations of young adult novels as of this year. With Sony’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One also kicking off two-part finale storylines during this Summer blockbuster season, Fast X leads the charge by splitting its supposed finale plot between two movies, perhaps even three, if Universal manages to twist Vin Diesel’s arm enough for that.

It may not surprise you however that this two-part split doesn’t do much for the flagging story quality of Fast X. With the franchise’s true final installment pegged for an April 2025 release at this point (assuming that proposed third finale movie doesn’t come to pass), Fast X spends a lot of time making noise and, if you’ll forgive the pun, spinning its wheels. The whole movie feels like a borderline-incoherent wild goose chase as Dante and Aimes keep creating trouble for the Fast Family, who survive, only to run into more trouble, eventually leading up to a finale that just repeats that formula again, and ultimately stops the runtime on a preposterous cliffhanger, with absolutely nothing resolved.

“Momoa’s Dante trolling the hell out of the Fast Family marks pretty much the last frontier of villains for these people to face by this point.”

Will 2025’s Fast X: Part 2 somehow make all of this thankless, tired storytelling worth it? Probably not, but I suppose that one must try to keep an open mind, even when the engine fell out of Fast & Furious’ storytelling rig many miles back. At this point though, it would take a miracle to put the Fast & Furious franchise back on track for a satisfying finale. Fast X is so desperate to kill time before the franchise’s true climactic movie that not even its stupidity and hokeyness seem to have any charm left by this point, instead wasting this movie’s entire runtime on the same overdone bag of tricks that all lead to a result of nothing but a demand to come back in 2025. Ugh.

I suppose we can’t fully judge Fast X until a couple of years from now, when Universal releases the rest of its story in a whole other movie. Such is the nature of the beast with two-part blockbusters and their rather strange comeback in 2023.

Even considering that fact however, Fast X feels dead-on-arrival, and that immediately puts its 2025 follow-up at a severe disadavantage. My screening companion put it best when she leaned over to me and whispered, “I shouldn’t be this bored in an action movie.” That pretty much sums up the fatal flaw with Fast X; It’s just not interesting. It can be stylish, it has a few moments of sporadic thrills, and Jason Momoa’s standout villain is a great slice of goofy fun, but none of that can save a bloated, tired action blockbuster that doesn’t deliver anything but mindless engine noise, and the same tired old story tropes.

While competing action movie franchises like Mission: Impossible, John Wick and 007 have found great ways to keep building momentum after Hollywood’s usual three-movie mandate (hell, even The Expendables is giving it another go this September!), Fast & Furious is starting to feel old, aimless and tired in comparison. This series felt like it was overstaying its welcome during the previous F9: The Fast Saga, and that feeling has only worsened with Fast X. This leaves the reality of 2025’s Fast X: Part 2 to feel more like an annoying obligation than a truly exciting event.

Like I said, what’s left to invest in? I like mindless action as much as the next guy, but even mindless action needs stakes and direction. Fast & Furious raced away from both of those a while ago, and now it just seems to be doing donuts around an increasingly bored audience, with the only privilege left to us viewers being inhaling its exhaust fumes.