The villains are usually killed in these fights – even if they’re not really villains: the Agency’s troops are just trying to apprehend people they believe to be terrorists, but that doesn’t stop Dom and his crew butchering them by the dozen. (Again, it’s best not to worry about this too much.) The heroes, meanwhile, never suffer anything worse than a scratch, which is the film’s fundamental flaw. Dom and co are all indestructible, hyper-competent, and immune to the laws of physics, which means that the viewer doesn’t have the fun of seeing them come up with clever ways to get out of sticky situations. They get out of sticky situations by being superhuman. They can drive their cars off a bridge or out of a plane, plummet for half a mile, and both they and their vehicles are as right as rain afterwards. Amusing as this may be, it does mean that there isn’t any tension.
For similar reasons, the stunts are never as thrilling as they should be. You’d have to assume that some fancy driving was involved, but it’s hidden by all the CGI and the frenetic editing and camerawork. While Bond movies show you that actual people perform the stunts, and the Mission: Impossible films show you that Tom Cruise performs them himself, Fast X leaves you unsure as to whether those stunts are performed at all. Nothing seems real, so none of it seems to matter.
Leterrier’s achievement in assembling such a gargantuan, multi-stranded, globe-trotting, head-spinning blockbuster is impressive, but however many gruff sermons Dom makes about his family, it’s impossible to care about any of it.
★★★☆☆
Fast X is on general release from 19 May.
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