‘Fast X’ Review: Drivers Wanted. Again. (Published 2023) (2024)

So much has gone over the top in these “Fast and Furious” movies — stunt work and demolition, obviously; but also family trees, racing, race, plots, pates, biceps, upper backs — that it wasn’t until I saw what Jason Momoa was up to in this new installment, “Fast X,” that I realized how much the acting had stayed under the table. He swoops in to play a flamboyant terrorist named Dante Reyes. And it’s pretty clear, from the pitiful quips he’s been given and the light-loafer treatment he’s going for, that the mustache Momoa’s twirling isn’t his. It’s Rip Taylor’s.

For half a century, Taylor ran all over American TV in a hail of confetti that he threw for himself. He didn’t act. He made appearances. That’s how Momoa operates here, showing up wherever the movie needs him (on patio furniture, at the top of the Aldeadávila Dam) in lavender and snakeskin and billowing everything, horny to blow something up. These movies have been out of good ideas since “Furious 7” eight years ago, mired in government-flavored tug-of-wars over hacking, surveillance and tech. And Momoa’s here to zhuzh things up. So along with Taylor’s mustache, Momoa twirls himself. It’s like watching an overcup oak go trick-or-treating as a Christmas tree.

And yet, even though he destroys the Spanish Steps of Rome with alacrity and purrs lines like, “I know what you’re thinking. And yes: the carpet matches the drapes,” it’s not zhuzh-y enough. Momoa is giving the Joker. But Cesar Romero’s. Of course, he’s the only person here committed to clear and present lunacy, going for post-macho chill, refashioning the quote marks around him into neck pillows.

Five movies and a dozen years ago, Dom (Vin Diesel) and the gang trashed favelas in Rio de Janeiro and killed Dante’s drug-lord father (along with scores of innocent Brazilians, but we’re not going there today). Now, with the series at the bottom of its barrel, Dante wants revenge. This means sending a giant bomb barreling toward the Vatican. He doesn’t quite pull that off, but his wish comes true to make wanted terrorists of Dom and the rest of the gang, creating a rift between them and the feds they covertly work for and spoiling the driving lessons Dom had been giving to his 8-year-old son, Brian (Leo Abelo Perry).

There are about five intersected plot lines, credited to Justin Lin and Dan Mazeau (the director Louis Leterrier replaces Lin as mayhem manager). Dom on the run; Dom’s brother, Jakob (John Cena), babysitting Brian (they’re on the run, too); some of Dom’s crew — Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Han (Sung Kang) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) — all but backpacking through Europe; Dom’s wife, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), arrested and locked up alongside the crew’s cyberterrorist nemesis, Cipher (Charlize Theron); and the two feds, Aimes (Alan Ritchson) and Tess (Brie Larson), at odds with each other over whether to aid or apprehend the “F&F” gang. And just about every strand stems from Dante’s pique and gets left as a cliffhanger that won’t be resolved until years from now in, what, “Fast X+1”?

The best I can say about all of this is that it didn’t bore me. But this is a series that, by the time its fourth and fifth installments arrived, had merged the original movie’s casually erotic, multiethnic, omni-racial car culture with the “can’t top that” set pieces of Hollywood summer movies. It wasn’t that that fusion was never boring. It had the thrill of newness. How many times have I laughed, in awe, at what this series could do with all kinds of vehicles and the people behind them. It insisted that a universe of nonwhite folks could meet the priorities of blockbuster filmmaking and still rake up money around the globe. And it was exciting to see who they could enfold into that agenda (Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Helen Mirren, Kurt Russell).