Fast X Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. The INSANELY Convoluted Script

Look, nobody's watching a Fast movie for the nuanced story or characters, but the better films in the series nevertheless touted a wink-wink creativity which made them genuinely charming and, in the case of Furious 7, even affecting.

But Fast X feels far more akin to F9, which isn't terribly surprising given that neither film was written by the series' most prolific screenwriter, Chris Morgan.

If F9 disappointed fans with its self-serious emphasis on leaden flashbacks and insultingly stupid storytelling, Fast X is basically more of the same in that regard.

First and foremost, the narrative introduces a couple of severe retcons to the events of Fast Five, which while not all bad, do feel desperately shoehorned in order to give this new movie some heightened stakes.

And then there's the harebrained scheme of villain Dante himself, which is so unnecessarily contrived and requires so much going implausibly right for him that it becomes impossible to get invested in what's going on.

If The Dark Knight's Joker popularised villains who plan everything down to the last possible variable, Dante's revenge ploy against Dom feels like a thigh-slapping parody of it - yet dares to take itself relatively seriously, despite Jason Momoa's gloriously mugging performance.

All in all the avalanche of low-effort twists and generic spy movie plotting - yes, there's another technological MacGuffin in play - are more exhausting than entertaining.