Fast and Furious 10 is the latest movie in a franchise dating back to 2001 and I have to admit that I’ve seen them all (except Tokyo Drift because…I just don’t wanna). Nearly all of them were utterly forgetable, though I remember the first one fondly. Also the one where the Rock and Vin were battling some dudes on an Antonov AN-225 cargo plane hurtling down a runway that was aproximately 30 miles long. That’s about it. They’ve kind of felt like a guilty passtime, like I was doing something I know I shouldn’t do because I know it won’t end up being good for me but what the heck, maybe it will. And, after F&F9 shot an car into space I truly thought I had reached the end of this franchise.
How very wrong I was.
Fast and Furious 10 (Fast X in shorthand)
The release of Fast X sped towards me like a…oh, I don’t know…like a thing that moves very fast, I guess…you can make your own analogy here if you can think of an appropriate one. I checked the new releases for something…ANYTHING…that I would rather see instead. But the weight of commitment to my followers convicted me and I bought a single ticket (my best girl bid me bon voyage and best of luck as I left for the theater). I was mentally steeling myself for whatever ante they were about to up. Maybe they were going to nitro burn at 88 mph into the multiverse (F&FXX. You’re welcome). Short of that, I was prepared for this movie to come in below my already bottom-shelf expectations.
Again, how very wrong I was.
Right off the starting line, I’ll tell you that everything you expected to be in this movie was there. Cars doing impossible car-things. Toughguy slugfests. Toughgirl kickfests. Crazy stakes with unrealistic threats. A gravelly-voiced Dom Torreto. All the cool tech. And family. This movie was, as expected, all about family.
Just not the Toretto family.
We are well-aquainted with the ironclad bond of the house of Dom. It didn’t need to be stressed any harder than it has been over the past nine movies. Family, yeah. We get it. We get it so much it has become its own meme genre. But this movie put Jason Momoa’s family in the driver’s seat and IT. WAS. AWESOME.
I’ve been drifting all around (sorry, that’s the last car pun) some of the details of this movie because I would love you to get your own expectations turned on their head just like mine were. I absolutely cannot explain how much I enjoyed this movie without telling you that it was primarly because of Momoa’s performance. It was like they took the bulk of the Hulk, Heath Ledger’s Joker and the effervescence of Dylan Mulvaney and rolled them all up into one maniacal ball and shot it out of a cannon at the Toretto family. All scenes belonged to him. He didn’t steal them, they were powerless to not be owned by his character, Dante.
That alone would have been enough to carry this movie. But lets add to the ensemble cast every character from every other movie – good guys AND bad guys – ever to grace the franchise. I mean all of them. Just when you think Fast and Furious 10 might have missed one…nope! Here they come. Fights ensue, hatchets get burried and they all kind of truce up to battle the unstoppable, unpredictable, charismatic Dante.
And to put the cherry on top of this totally unexpected joyride is this: nobody saw this ending coming. I mean nobody. And anyone who spoils this ending for you should be beat with a tire iron (okay, that was really the last one).
So sure, everything about this movie was over the top. You had to expect that. If you didn’t and you walk away saying ‘well, that was just too much’ then I really don’t know what to tell you. No one sees this movie that hasn’t seen at least some of the other nine, so you knew the job was dangerous when you took it. Belief is not just suspended, it is exiled out of necessity. Once you let go of silly notions like physics and logic, you are prepared to enjoy this movie. I can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I am giving Fast and Furious 10 a solid 4.2/5. I enjoyed the crap out of this movie in spite of myself. And I’ll be expecting my royalty checks on F&FXX in about 21 years.
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