The tenth Fast and the Furious is going by Fast X, for the very few Latin scholars among Vin Diesel’s core fan-base.
22 years ago, the first Fast and the Furious was a modest film about cars and undercover cops, trying to bust a black-market gang led by one Dominic Toretto – Vin Diesel.
But things got bigger very quickly over the years.
Photo: Supplied
Before long they were working Black Ops for the CIA, taking on international criminals, smashing cars through sky-scrapers and into outer space.
But all rooted in one thing. It’s all about…. that’s right, it’s all about family.
Family trumps everything in the Furious world.
In fact, quite often the enemies of the expanding Dom Toretto clan find themselves later welcomed into the family.
It makes no sense, but making sense has never been a driving motivation of the Fast and Furious franchise, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Yes, despite the endless repetition of the “family” mantra, it’s really all about cars. Driving cars in every direction you can imagine – backwards, forwards, up, down, upside down, whatever.
But before the screaming tyres, there’s usually a family barbecue, this time hosted by Dom’s hitherto unknown grandma.
Rita Moreno leads a string of some pretty incredible leading women in Fast X.
You may be surprised when Charlize Theron turns up to warn Dom that the son of a less magnificent family is out for revenge.
I know, wasn’t Charlize Dom’s arch-enemy? Well don’t worry, here’s a new one – Jason Momoa, whose drug-dealing father was killed in a previous episode. Was it 5? 3? 7? Well don’t worry about that either.
Momoa is a larger than life personality anyway, you’d think, with his huge biceps and flowing Hawaiian locks.
But no. Someone – Vin Diesel, new director Louis Leterrier, possibly Jason himself – decided there was room to go bigger as villain Dante Reyes.
Mind you, Dante’s competing with a crowded cast. Apart from Dom, his wife Letty and the rest of the Tight Five - Tej, Roman and Han, there are any amount of walk-ons from the likes of Jason Statham.
Keeping the family theme going, there’s the daughter of their old CIA boss, played by actress turned action star Brie Larson, there’s John Cena as Dom’s long-lost brother.
There’s Dame Helen Mirren as Statham’s old Mum Queenie, a blink and you’ll miss it appearance by Gal Gadot, and of course Theron.
I have to say, watching Theron taking out the trash in not nearly enough scenes is enough to remind me how much I’ve missed seeing her on the screen.
But let’s not cry over missed opportunities. Dom and Dante are attacking each other from every possible angle in a bunch of exotic locations – Rio, Rome, London, Antarctica – even Portugal.
Is there a plot? I hear a few die-hard traditionalists asking - aside from flamboyant Dante coming up with endless schemes to get revenge on Dom? Come on, it worked for Wile E Coyote in all those Roadrunner cartoons.
Add a side-order of Dom and Letty trying to protect their adopted son, gangs of bad guys facing gangs of good guys in between car-races and what more could anyone want?
But even a film as footloose and fancy free as Fast X can find itself tangled up in plot, with so many moving parts colliding into each other.
The film ends abruptly with half the cast either blown up or missing in action. It’s all right, I don’t need a “to be continued” caption to tell me there’s more to come.
The question is, will I be joining Dom and his – by my count – Magnificent 27, as they attempt to drive the franchise to a safe haven? I suspect not.
Frankly when I find myself counting the number of times anyone said “family” in Fast X – 56, apparently – it was clear my mind was no longer on the job.
