Last Friday, I had the misfortune of watching “Fast X.” “Fast X” is a painful slog of a movie and the fragmented sequel to “Fast and Furious 9” released in 2021. 

“Fast X” follows Dom Toretto (played by Vin Diesel), a snarky street racer with deep family values, as he aims to protect everyone he loves from a revenge driven antagonist Dante Reyes (played by Jason Momoa). Throughout the film, the audience watches as the murder of Dante’s father Hernan Reyes in Fast 5 drives his quest to uphold his family’s criminal legacy and defeat anyone who blocked his path

Personally, I found the two hour and 21 minute movie to be a never ending nightmare, harmed by the cast’s dry acting, the plot’s lack of originality, and a blisteringly long screen time. Simply put, this film is just too long and to make that two hour runtime even worse, it ends on a cliffhanger, which leaves viewers even more confused on why they wasted part of their weekend on this mess of a film. 

However, I do have a few compliments for this painfully unoriginal movie. Primarily, Jason Mamoa’s performance as Dante Reyes brought a small, but significant breath of fresh air to the film, as he did a fantastic job playing a relatively generic psychotic villain. In his role, Jason managed to effectively convey the emotional damage often caused by losing a loved one and displayed the impacts a cutthroat nature can have on a child. 

Still, I think it is time for this generic, poorly acted, series “about family” to die. I’d like to think that none of us 20 years ago would have expected for this creatively bankrupt franchise to still be alive. Sadly, this film is evident of the current culture in Hollywood, where creativity and originality has been traded for shameless remakes and cash grabs, which have continuously struggled to attract the same critical acclaim as their originals. 

Unfortunately, these same creatively bankrupt films continue to make more and more money. For example, Fast X has made over 610 million dollars according to wikipedia as of May 26th, while Fast 9 made 762 million dollars in total. This trend will only continue as producers ceaselessly  choose guaranteed profit over creative risks. 

Just please don’t watch this movie, I’d give it a 1/5 and I would give it even lower if I didn’t want to be fair. I despised nearly every second of having to sit in the theater for this movie, when creative gems like “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” are in theaters. Go see Spider-Man and skip this movie.