Fast X review: The beginning of the end is a bit of a bumpy road

Fast X review: The beginning of the end is a bit of a bumpy road

We seem to live in an age of so many films that may start as a single film and then suddenly a studio that released it sees a potential for making them even more money by expanding this universe more and more with new releases coming out frequently with one every 2 years and each of them going from simple undercover cops in street Race gangs finding the source of possible stolen goods to where they are jumping across tall buildings, planes, Using Magnets to defy the laws of physics and going to space as well as 2 of the series stars getting a spin off of both of them fighting an advanced super soldiers and the reason for it was all in the name of Family (I really question how many times I will say that word in this review). Now I feel personally if they wanted to go out on a high note and sense of reaching a certain threshold it should've ended on a high with Furious 7, especially with the filming being affected with the tragic sudden passing of Paul Walker in 2013 while this was in the middle of filming and on break for the Christmas period and they worked the way to make it the best in the series and afterwards it went a little off the radar with main lead Vin Diesel being more difficult to work with, causing a beef with the Rock, producers and everything and this can be seen as well with the last few where they are drift over submarines, going to space and the most odd logical sense that Vin Diesels brother in said universe in John Cena and somehow they get out of any perilous predicament without a scratch cut or mark on them. But now we are here to talk about the newest film (coinciding around the time of its release to home media) with what is dubbed as the 1st part to a 2 part finale to the series (well unless the supposed out of nowhere talks of a 3rd extra entry is to go by but that seems to be unknown right now) with Fast X. Also I want to just emphasize that they had the perfect opportunity to name this movie Fast 10 Your Seatbelts and yet they completely dropped the ball on it and now it will probably see more and more of these films getting extra X's on it to the point where it will turn into a XXX Xander Cage film. But we have to ask the question, is the film any good, well it is an improvement of the completely over the top F9 but it is a bit of a mixed bag that has a little bit of a bumpy road as it heads to the finish line.

Start at the Story line

Now the likes of most of the films in the fast and furious franchise has been since the 4th or 5th entry they all have some sort of familiar pattern to them. They start off with them being provided some job by the government, they head off around the world to certain locations, drive in supped up cars (and Doms classic Dodge Charger) as they go to do the job, stop the films bad guy through all sorts of means, some of the comic relief will make jokes and goofs along the way, Vin Diesel will say the word family at least more then 10 times in a film and will end with all of them gathered in the Toretto back garden for a BBQ and drinking alcohol and then the film cuts to credits. Now this one is a little different as it has the end part at the beginning given this is essentially a part 1 of a duology or trilogy and for the rest of the story is as follows.

"Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they must confront the most lethal opponent they have ever faced. Fuelled by Revenge, a terrifying new threat emerges from the shadows of the past to shatter Dom's world and destroy everything -- And everyone -- he loves"

Now I think the plot narrative concept for this one is well explained and gives a bit of an excitement as it will connect back to the series better then some of the others, it builds to something bigger then expected and there is someone that while they have faced some in their past that are out for revenge or seen as a form of a threat, this new villain is someone that may have been seen but has been watching for the better part of a decade and knows their every move and gives a sense of things are not going to be easy. It does make more common sense in plot form then the likes of the last film where for some reason John Cena was Dom's character, someone that apparently has been established in the universe since the beginning but never really brought up until this film. Now I feel this story is not perfect and can be affected from its full story being split into parts so it could be a great end story or could completely fall apart by the end of the next film or supposedly trilogy, but we will see how it turns out.

Story score: 7-8

Our Racing line up of characters

Now the likes of this film has a lot of characters that I could talk about but I feel there is a select few that would be specific major characters for this film but there would also be a lot that would be initially main characters in other films in the series but since there is so many  I have some that would be seen more as major characters here and some have been resorted to side characters for this one in particular

Dominic Toretto (Vin diesel)

So lets start with the main focal character of most of these films and that is with Dominic Toretto. Now he is one of the 2 or 3 characters that has the most to do for this film and is the reason for the vendetta for the main antagonist of this film. Now he does try his best to do what's right for his "Family" but he may be a bit too over his head on this particular mission but he is the one that does majorly drive the story along, he does have some of the more compelling scenes in this film and is probably the most entertaining, but he would be the 2nd most entertaining aspect of this film.

Dante Reyes (Jason Mamoa)

Now lets talk the villain and personally the real highlight of the movie and that is with Dante Reyes. Now he is an antagonist that has long thought out his revenge against those that stole his fortune and killed his father and he seems to have it all mapped out and planned of how he will destroy Toretto and his "Family". Throughout this entire film he is truly just a highlight when he appears on screen as he is that form of this man will knock the shit of you or murder you in cold blood but still have a deep conversation with your corpse and personally given the next film is continuing with him as mot likely the final antagonist to the series, he is the reason I want to watch the next movie for.

Jakob Toretto (John Cena)

Now for the character that was introduced in the previous film that everyone had to acknowledge is Dom's brother that we had no idea was a person until the last film and that is with Jakob. Now his part of the plot for the film is essentially a long form escort mission with protecting Dom's child from danger and honestly I do give one thing and I respect the effort of acting that John Cena has had over the years following from his wrestling days and he has some good funny moments in this film and does have some cool scenes and I think he served the film well with his character usage.

Aimes (Alan Ritchson)

Now for one of the newer characters and this is with Aimes. He is the new head of the organization that was run by Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell) and he has that case of someone that takes over a company and you may have followed the method a certain way but now that method is wrong and you must do it by his accord. He is an adversary but will learn what may be right or wrong in this fight and you don't know whether to trust him or not but I think for his screen presence he is a compelling character throughout

Tess (Brie Larson)

Another new edition to the cast is the character of Tess, The daughter of Mr Nobody who sees the side of Dom and his "family" values and that she will go out of her way to betray the organization her father had run for years before new management took over and she does help in some capacity for certain moments in a few of the cast and gets involved in the fight. Sure she does have a much smaller role with a few appearances then expected but I am sure she will have some form of an appearance in the next part to the conclusion.

The rest of the line up

Now the basis of this film with the rest of the regulars as well are really kind of wasted in this film to me personally as throughout the film they really don't help much in terms of plot as Ramsey, Tej, Roman and Han really kind of go on some weird side adventure where most times it is attempts at comedy with Tej and Roman that are not really all that funny and the only one that makes an attempt with moving story along is Ramsey. Statham' Deckard Shaw is there for the duration of about 2 minutes, essentially the extended scene of the post credits from F9 and felt a little wasted to use Jason Stathem like that (even though he got a cool fight scene with Han against some armed forces). As for Letty and Cipher, most of their scenes is trapped in some facility, they have some fight and then magically make up and then they need to figure out how to escape a tundra so they were wasted. There is a use of one new character and it was Daniella Melchoir's character of Isabela who does help with a plot points and does get herself involved to a certain degree but I found it fine enough and I am sure they will appear most likely in the sequel. Now they could all improve in the sequel and are just laying the ground work for that but as things stand a lot of the regular characters were not used really in this and hopefully have more of a reason in the next and possibly final part.

Characters Score: 6-6.5

see the sites, save the world

Now let us go onto the focus on specifically just the presentation as this isn't going off any other form of source material or much on the focus use of visual effects and will mainly just a run down on the likes of what you can expect from the presentation. Personally the presentation is nice, there is a good use of set locations across the globe and work well for some set pieces like the opening montage of them trying to stop a runaway bomb rolling through the streets of Rome and avoiding any casualties in the process, to visiting some locations from the past like a good portion is set in specific locations for some characters like Dom is mostly after Dante in Brazil, Letty is stuck in some remote location with Cipher and the rest of the "family" are stuck in the UK for most of the film or more in a desert type locations with Jakob. Now the likes of the ones for Dom is probably the best use of showing off some of the most known content of the series which was the street racing and a focus on using the fast cars to do some cool but dumb stunts and that helps it. 

The only thing that does hinder it a lot is the method of editing for the film and some use of camera work as when I watched the film I noticed a lot of quick cuts back and forth with some scenes throughout with quick succession that might cause affect with people who have photosensitivity of flashing colours and lighting changes, some other aspects is that they seem to do a fair amount of drone camera footage and but there is a thing where it zips around and always seems to be turning at an angle and can feel a little disorienting and sometimes in a small amount of the scenes with the quick cuts it can show some semblance of pacing issues where some may be too quick and don't give you time to take in what happened. It does bring a question if this had a budget of $340 million to make from it getting overblown in production, then some concerns may be brought up for it but hopefully things like this could be fixed in the follow up

Presentation score: 6.5-7

Nice Script, mind if I put the word Family on every page?

Now I will try and keep this brief for the timing but I find the writing to be fine, its nothing great. I mean some make sense and are reasonable and some of the writing is funny in some semblance with the likes of Dante and Jakob now and again, but sometimes it can feel a little complicated with he is after this thing and then it is not used at all or the likes of them trying to do jokes all the time with the other group of the "family" but it feels a little forced and want to put them in there for screen time and have them used or observe certain aspects but I feel they are not expecting the deep level of writing of an action movie with some over the top stunts with cars (I mean from observing the film, the word Family is said a total of 27 times and some have said its as high as 56 times in the film but it is the most in the series of using the word Family). Hopefully there is some better form of structured writing in the next one or else it will be completely all over the place and make no sense (and they will probably double the use of the word family.

Writing Score: 5.5-6

Play some Tunes

To give this a review on the likes of the music for this movie, it is not bad and the music does it work well enough. This is the 2nd review I have done this year that has mentioned the composer for this film with Brian Taylor as he was also the one responsible for the music to the Super Mario Bros Movie and I will say that for what its worth the music for this movie he does a good job with it and he knows what he is doing with the series since he has done the score for most of the other films in the series (not sure if all of them) so he would technically be a member of this family. It is a decent score, some I would listen to now and again but not much else I can say on that.

Music score: 7.5

Blown a tire and out of gas

Now with any form of media from film, game, show or anything else there is always going to be some form of critiques to things and to better explain each section as to what I would have a critique on that they could fix in the follow up supposed finale

Story: Now I will not give too much flak to this section as it could be better fixed with the rest of this story in the 2nd part so unless the next one is good it will be bumped up and if not it will stay this score or lowered slightly

Characters: A lot of the characters that would be a focus in the other films are really sidelined and only ones that have a major focus is Dom and Dante and a little with Jakob, if it is improved with the characters in the next part it may help its chances but that is the major problem

Presentation: Mainly in the likes of the editing and pacing as sometimes it goes by too fast that you do not have a moment to process what was shown beforehand and some editing of it feels a little too quick or some choices were not the best. Slow it down a little and ease into the camera styles better to have more attention to it.

Writing: Alright to some degree, needs a bit more a better tone balance of serious and moments of levity as some writing feels forced for some characters but works with others and some elements get brought up at first and then not mentioned again (I also question if I am fine with the amount of uses of Family should be added or decreased but need to think on that)

Music: some of the music track in it are alright and some are good, bit of a mix but not overly terrible

Is it a photo finish or a DNF

Overall, to bring this review to a close, Fast X is something I would agree is a much better improvement over the over the top cartoonish nature of F9 by feeling a lot more grounded but just by a little bit. Is there problems, yes, mainly on the likes of balancing out the characters so they all have a use in the story and not feel there for just being part of the cast and some writing aspects, but I knew from the get go that I was thinking this series was going to get more and more over the top since it got more well recieved from the critics and audiences from Fast Five onwards. Do I see this having the potential to end the mainline series on a high note? There is potential yes, as long as they have a plan out for the end of the series with Dom and his family and hopefully the use of Jason Mamoa's Dante is used more and becomes even more unhinged as he was the standout of the whole film. But while I know they will not be the most well thought out series, I am always up for one last ride to see what happens even when I said the last time was the last one.

Final Scores

Story: 7.5

Characters:6

Presentation: 7

Writing: 6

music: 7.5

Total score: 34/50 or 68% (C+ or B-)

Total uses of the word family in the review: 15-16

If you enjoyed this review then why not comment below on your thoughts in where I could improve and also to share your thoughts on this movie if you have seen it or on the other films in the series and do you think the final part (or next 2 parts) will be any good or will the series mess it all up? Let me know your opinions down below and I shall see you in the next review and blog.

Signing off

Sam H