Everything about “Fast X,” the latest entry in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, is big. Really big.
The a-lister cast list is a laundry list, including returning stars Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson and Charlize Theron along with the addition of Marvel superheroes Jason Momoa and Brie Larson. The villain is faster and more furious than ever before and the action can only be described as bigly. There’s even a surprise cameo from one of the world’s biggest movie stars.
But is bigger always better?
A jumble of the usual mix of family, friends, fast cars and flashbacks, “Fast X” begins with relative calm in the world of former criminal and professional street racer Dominic Toretto (Diesel). The patriarch of the “F&F” gang, he has left the fast life behind, and retired with wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and his son Brian. “We used to live our lives a quarter mile at a time,” he says. “But things change.”
Not so fast, there Dom.
Dom’s past comes back to haunt him in the form of flamboyant villain Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), the sadistic, revenge fueled son of drug lord Hernan Reyes. “I’m Dante,” he says by way of introduction. “Enchanté.”
Way back in “Fast Five” Dom and Co. were responsible for the loss of the Reyes family fortune. “The great Dominic Toretto,” Dante snarls. “If you never would’ve gotten behind that wheel, I’d never be the man I am today. And now, I’m the man who’s going to break your family, piece by piece.”
Cue the set-up to the second part of the franchise’s three-part finale. It is, as they say on the movie poster, just the beginning of the end.
In the “Fast & Furious” world the word “ludicrous” is not just the name of prominent cast member Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, it’s also the name of the game. Since the franchise’s humble 2001 debut, the movies have grown bigger and sillier with each entry. “If it can violate the laws of God and gravity,” says Agent Aimes (Alan Ritchson) in “FX,” “they do it twice.”
The latest one redefines ridiculousness.
The out-of-control car stunts that crowd the screen have no touchstone in reality, other than the cars have four wheels and drive along streets when they aren’t bursting into flames or flying through the air. It’s as if the wild car chases were dreamed up by fourteen-year-olds playing with their Hot Wheels sets as images of canon cars danced in their heads. Anything goes, and no idea is too big or too ludicrous.
When the tires aren’t squealing, Dom is whinging on about the importance of family with a straight face and a serious tone that makes Leslie Nielsen’s “Naked Gun” deadpan look positively flamboyant. Only Momoa seems to understand how colossally silly the whole thing is, and has fun pulling faces, doing a Grand Jeté or two and peacocking around as he rolls a neutron bomb through the streets of Rome. It’s a ludicrous performance in a completely ludicrous movie and it fits.
The bombastic “Fast X” is overstuffed with characters—it seems like every actor in Hollywood has a cameo—plot and, if this is possible, it is overstuffed with excess. The very definition of “go big or go home,” it is for “F&F” fans who have been along for the ride for more than two decades everyone else may want to take a detour.
I guess it is fitting that a team of movie MVPs would band together to tell a story about the greatest football quarterback of all time. It’s just too bad the movie, “80 for Brady,” now playing on theatres, is a bit of a fumble.
Based on a true story, the movie is first and foremost, the tale of the deep bond between football fans, octogenarians Lou (Lily Tomlin), Trish (Jane Fonda), Maura (Rita Moreno), and septuagenarian Betty (Sally Field). The lifelong friends discover football, or more specifically, one footballer, in 2001 when Lou’s television remote broke, leaving the channel stuck on a New England Patriots game.
When the quartet laid eyes on quarterback Tom Brady, they were smitten. “What a beautiful man,” says Trish. “So hydrated,” adds Maura.
Sixteen years later, as the Patriots prepare to take on the Atlanta Falcons at Super Bowl LI, the four fans plan their ultimate get-a-way after winning two pairs of Super Bowl tickets from a local sports call-in show.
“We’re going to the Super Bowl to enjoy men the way the ancient Romans did,” says Lou. “Sweaty and on top of one another in tight pants.”
When it looks like the Patriots are down for the count, Lou, Trish, Maura and Betty, in their bedazzled Brady jerseys, spring into action, providing some much-needed moral support.
“80 for Brady” is a mawkish movie, a firehose spray of sentimentality and easy platitudes. it’s a testament to the collective buddy charisma of the leads that it works as well as it does. The characters may be clichés come to life but without the cast, much of the film’s humour would be as deflated as the footballs used at the 2014 AFC title game against the Indianapolis Colts. Tomlin, Fonda), Moreno and Field’s combined 250 years of on-screen experience breathe life into several showcase scenes.
Moreno earns a laugh or two playing hardball with a scalper and a hot wing eating contest gives Field a chance to heat things up amid the movie’s well-intentioned but overbearingly cheerful bromides.
“80 for Brady” aims to lift up the audience, to inspire, but only in the most superficial ways. There is more edge on any single episode of “Golden Girls” than in the entire running time of this ode to friendship and football.
The list of films Hollywood considers sacred and untouchable is a short one. Only a bugger for punishment would attempt a redo of “The Godfather.” And imagine the jeers that would accompany the announcement of a reimagined “Casablanca” or “Do the Right Thing.”
Until recently I would have put “West Side Story,” the classic 1961 musical that won ten Academy Awards, in the top five of films on the No Go list. But just as that show riffed on “Romeo and Juliet,” a classic if there ever was one, Steven Spielberg takes another look at a memorable movie the TCM crowd considers untouchable.
Set in 1950s New York City, the story of love at first sight is plays out against a backdrop of the gentrification of the Upper West Side, a then blue-collar neighborhood. Two gangs, the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Jets, the “Last of the Can’t Make It Caucasians,” run the streets as the NYC Department of Slum Clearance chop up their home turf. The only thing they have in common is a “womb to tomb” membership motto.
Into this comes Tony and Maria (Ansel Elgort and newcomer Rachel Zegler), star-crossed lovers whose infatuation causes friction between the gangs. “You’re going to start World War III,” says Anita (Ariana DeBose).
Tony’s best friend Riff (Mike Faist) runs the nativist white Jets—“Everything is being taken over by people I don’t like,” he sneers.—while Maria’s brother Bernardo (David Alvarez) leads the Sharks.
Tony is on parole for almost beating a boy to death in a rumble, but has turned over a new leaf. “I want to unlike myself,” he says, “because I was headed to the sewer.” He also puts to rest the notion that “once you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way.” He wants out of that life, but most of all, he wants Maria.
As Riff and Bernardo plan a rumble to viciously work out their differences, Maria begs Tony to put an end to the violence. “We can’t pretend what we do didn’t cause this trouble,” she says. Tony intervenes, but the situation quickly spirals out of control.
Steven Spielberg’s take on “West Side Story” feels rooted in the tradition of movie musicals but vibrates with current themes. The social mindfulness that was revolutionary for musical theatre in the 1950s Broadway run is present and expanded on. Tony Kushner’s script offers context and backstories for underdeveloped characters and plays on hot button themes of racial animus, poverty and violence.
Most of all, however, it’s about love.
It’s love that causes all the trouble but also gives the movie its beating heart. As the couple in question Elgort and Zegler are appealing, wide-eyed romantic figures. Zegler is a convincing swirl of determination and innocence, with a beautiful voice. Elgort can wrap his mouth around Stephen Sondheim’s lovely lyrics—”Maria, say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying”—but doesn’t shine as bright as some of his co-stars.
As Bernardo, Alvarez brings the menace, smooth charm and athletic dance moves to steal his scenes. Faist also impresses as hardheaded gang leader Riff. DeBose gives a high stepping performance as Bernardo’s girlfriend Anita, a role that grows more poignant in the movie’s third act.
But it’s a returning cast member from the 1961 film who gives the movie its soul.
Rita Moreno won an Oscar for playing Anita in the original. Here she plays drug mart operator Valentina. Kushner expands the role, making the character the conscience of the neighborhood. She is luminous in the part, and, in a major departure from the 1961 film, does a solo rendition of “Somewhere,” a song of hope usually sung by the romantic leads. Here it is devastating, played as song of longing and loss. If my goosebumps voted for the Academy Awards, Moreno would have another statue to put on her shelf.
“West Side Story” is Spielberg’s most compelling film in years. It reinvents, reimagines and recontextualizes a classic story with energy, respect and lots of finger snapping.
