Fast X opens in theaters on May 19, 2023

Universal doesn’t have X-wings, they have cars that sometimes fly. They don’t have superheroes, they have street racers from Los Angeles who steal VCRs and nuclear subs. With so many filmmakers taking the po-faced, gritty approach to keeping old favorite characters and series relevant in recent years, the Fast and Furious franchise’s open and growing embrace of nonsensical mayhem has been a delight. 2021’s F9 managed to pull off multiple outrageous action scenes based on the magic of magnets. It sent Tyrese and Ludacris to space in a Pontiac. It told us John Cena was Vin Diesel’s brother with a straight face, and we believed it. Or at least, those of us who were willing to suspend enough of our disbelief to go along for the wild ride. But it turns out there’s only so much mileage you can get out of that kind of absurdity without touching grass. The roaring joy of F9 gives way to the cacophonous Fast X, a sprawling and overstuffed opening salvo of a planned multi-part finale which stuffs a potato in the series’ tailpipe. It’s redeemed almost single-handedly by a deeply weird and very entertaining villain performance from Jason Momoa.

It was all the way back in 2011 that Fast Five saw Hobbs chasing Brian and Dom while they were towing drug lord Hernan Reyes’ safe through Rio. It was a watershed moment of cartoon logic worming its way into a formerly self-serious series, which paired best with a can of Axe body spray and a copy of Need for Speed Underground 2 on the PS2. And you know what? The movies that followed were mostly the better for it. There’s vulnerability and risk in significantly shifting the tone of a franchise midstream, and few could’ve imagined watching the 2001 original that not only would the Fast movies take that risk at all, but be so successful in transitioning it to something uniquely bombastic.

As this series is wont to do, Fast X sloppily reveals that Hernan’s son Dante (Jason Momoa) was actually present during that whole chase scene and, after seeing his family’s ill-gotten fortune destroyed and his father killed, has re-emerged to wage war on Dom (Vin Diesel) – the ringleader of the world’s premier group of car thieves/international spies – promising no death while suffering is owed. His revenge motivation may be clear, and Fast X hammers his Anti-Dom foil status home at every turn, but the ways in which Dante brings that vengeance to bear on the Fast Family are as erratic as Dante himself. It’s only through the technology and mercenary forces that he is somehow able to amass that he’s able to do much of anything. He wants to make Dom suffer by hurting his family, but routinely ignores opportunities to twist that knife in ways that read as less patiently sadistic and more just… ineffective.

The looseness of the character demanded an actor ready to exploit that in their performance, and Jason Momoa showed up to set hungry. Dante’s effectiveness as an antagonist aside, the boundless chaos energy Momoa sustains throughout the entirety of Fast X is the one consistently enjoyable element. There’s no other way to say it: Dante’s a real freak, and Momoa flies that flag with gusto. It feels like he’s marathoned all these movies and parodies Dom’s machismo and predictable logic at every turn, both to Dom’s face and he’s completely alone. It’s the private moments of goatee-twirling that set Dante apart from other villains in the series to date, and Momoa deserves a huge amount of credit for keeping Fast X from sinking under its own weight.