When interviewing actors about antagonist roles, you often hear a lot of the same sentiments shared. “I don't view [insert character name] as a villain,” they say. They explain that nobody in real life views themselves as a villain. They are dedicated to expressing a reasonable perspective that justifies their character's actions. They denounce mustache-twirling, instead aiming to ground their performance in reality.
Release Date: May 19, 2023
Directed By: Louis Leterrier
Written By: Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, John Cena, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Sung Kang, Daniela Melchior, Scott Eastwood, Alan Ritchson, Helen Mirren, Brie Larson, Jason Statham, Rita Moreno, Jason Momoa, and Charlize Theron
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material
Runtime: 141 minutes
This is a standard acting method… and a playbook that Fast X's Jason Momoa sets on fire and gleefully runs over with a steamroller while wearing a pastel suit and hair done up in pom-poms. As Dante Reyes, the Aquaman star is the latest foe to go toe-to-toe with the found family of Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto in the long-running Fast & Furious franchise, and he not only wins you over with his psychotic, merciless, and cartoony antics, but provides a breath of fresh air into a blockbuster series that has grown stale in the last few years. Dante is the best villain to be unleashed in these movies, and it's because of both his special personality and how his presence shakes everything up.
Looping the story back to the events of Fast Five, the new sequel introduces Dante Reyes as the son of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), the corrupt politician/businessman whom Dom Toretto and his friends robbed in a heist that saw Hernan's giant safe being towed and dragged around the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Dante was nearly killed in the chase that followed, but he survived, and he makes plans to kill all of the Fast & Furious heroes in an act of vengeance – but not before causing them immense suffering.
Setting up a bogus mission in Rome that's actually a trap, Dante successfully gets the family's handlers at The Agency to turn on them and declare them terrorists. This has the effect of putting the heroes on the run and forcing them to split up. While Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is captured and thrown in an Agency black site, Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Ramsay (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Han (Sung Kang) head to London to recruit some help, and Dom goes to Brazil via Naples to try and find Dante and stop him before he can fully execute his big plan.
Jason Momoa is the best thing to happen to Fast & Furious since Dwayne Johnson's arrival in Fast Five.
The Fast & Furious movies have rolled out some high profile stars as villains, with the last three respectively unleashing Jason Statham, Charlize Theron and John Cena as the main heavies, but none of them leave a mark quite like what Jason Momoa does in Fast X – his personality outshining everyone else in the talented ensemble. He is the franchise's version of The Joker, blending flamboyance with sadism and a smile, and while the plotting at which he is the center is ridiculous, it's made digestible by the character's ludicrousness. You do wonder why Dante waited so long to execute his bloodthirsty plan and how he is able to get oh so many bombs everywhere he needs them to be, but the totality of the chaos he unleashes ends up being satisfying enough for one to look past those queries.
The guy is operating on a magical level pretty much from the beginning, his post-flashback entrance into the film having him slice up a guy with a knife and lick the blade clean. But his whole vibe is really summed up in a second act scene where he hangs out in the sun and makes moves to drain the bank accounts of the protagonists: before fiddling around on a computer and initiating the next step in his complicated plan, he paints the toes of a couple of corpses whose faces are wrapped up in tape to form grotesque smiles. It's demented, but it's a much-needed lightning bolt bringing a fresh, bold energy to what has become a threadbare franchise.
Fast X makes a point of avoiding the plot pitfalls in which the last two movies got trapped.
Momoa's Dante is by himself a much needed new flavor for these movies, but what's also exciting to see is that his presence cascades some other much changes into the proceedings of this franchise. Fun and exciting as it was to see the main Fast & Furious characters evolve into becoming super spies over the course of Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7, the last two movies rendered the brand exhausting and tired. Fans were given the satisfaction of seeing characters go into space in F9 (a long awaited plot development), but larger experience was rendered unsatisfying by non-existent stakes and recycled plotting.
With Jason Momoa's performance as the film's backbone, Fast X doesn't make the mistake of once again reprising those issues. Dante's mission and drive proves to be a true threat that imperils the lives of the main characters, and (without giving too much away) there are specific moves made to first highlight one of the franchise's central clichés and then upend it in hardcore fashion. The filmmakers have heard the criticisms about these movies, and they have made moves to address them.
Fast X is better than The Fate Of The Furious and F9, but still has a whole lot of dumb.
Of course, while Fast X is an overall improvement for the trajectory of the series, there is also plenty about the film that is either straight-up stupid or just comes across as lazy. There are a number of eye-popping and thrilling set pieces – the standouts being the race to contain a giant bomb that is rolling toward Vatican City and a third act pursuit on a highway in Portugal – but far too often action unfolds simply for the sake of action (be it Brie Larson’s Tess randomly kicking the asses of a bunch of patrons in a bar prior to a secretive meeting with Dom, or Agency mercenaries showing up at a secret location in London so that Han and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw can fight side-by-side). Multiple plot threads feel like they are included just for the sake of keeping key characters in the game, and some end up being forgotten about completely by the time the third act rolls around.
The script, credited to Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin, is shoddy – but Jason Momoa is the Kintsugi glue that holds it all together and lets it work. The Fast & Furious movies may be past their prime era (which came to an end with Furious 7), but Fast X at the very least makes efforts to deviate from formula and successfully leaves you wondering what’s going to happen next in Fast & Furious 11.
