The production of the latest Fast and Furious film didn’t start out quite well. Series regular director, Justin Lin, decided to step down from the director’s chair just a few weeks into production. Reportedly, Lin was tired of dealing with Vin Diesel’s behavior. According to several reports, Diesel would show up several hours late every day during the shoots and always forget his lines. This, of course, would slow down the production, and studio bosses will always blame the film’s director.

After a very fast search, the studio decided to hire French director Louis Leterrier to take over the director’s chair. With a tight production schedule and massive budget, Leterrier was able to finish the movie on time and Dom and his family are back on the big screen.

In a flashback to the climactic car chase scene in the fifth film in the series, Fast Five, we learned that Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) has a son named Dante (Jason Momoa). Dante was in one of the SUVs that were chasing Dom and Brian (Paul Walker). Reyes was killed at the end of the film, but Dante survived and now he wants revenge on Dom and his family.

Fast forward to the present day, Dom and his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are living a quiet life with his son Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry). While his other family members Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Han (Sung Kang), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), and Tej (Ludacris) are still doing work for The Agency. In their latest mission, they’re heading to Rome to steal some item that could destroy the world.

While his friends went to Rome for the mission, a wounded Cipher (Charlize Theron) showed up at Dom’s house and notified him that he and everyone close to him are in danger. As it turns out, the mission in Rome was set up and Dante was behind the whole thing. Knowing that their friends are in danger, Dom and Letty decided to head to Rome. Chaos ensued and half of Rome got destroyed.

After what happened in Rome, The Agency’s new boss, Aimes (Alan Ritchson) isn’t too happy and wants Dom and his family under arrest. The daughter of the previous Agency’s boss, Tess (Brie Larson) disagrees, she believes that someone is setting up Dom and his family. Aimes ignored her and sent his men to capture Dom and everyone in his family. While Mia (Jordana Brewster) was watching Dom’s son at his home, Aimes’ men showed up and tried to capture them. Thankfully, Jakob (Jon Cena) came to the rescue, and they all evaded The Agency’s goons.

Now even though it sounded like a lot of things happened in the film, and it was a lot going on, the film didn’t really have a plot. The screenplay was credited to Justin Lin and Dan Mazeau, but it was just a rehash of the last few films in the series. We get the typical globe-trotting locations and big action set pieces but there wasn’t anything new or exciting.

Leterrier is an experienced action director, but I couldn’t recall any memorable action scenes in the film. The first big action scene that took place in Rome started out pretty good, but it went way too long that it became boring. Same thing with the big finale, there wasn’t any anticipation to these action scenes, they just happened. Also, many of the big stunts relied way too much on CGI, I thought I was watching a Marvel film. With a massive budget, I would’ve liked to see more practical stunt work.

When it comes to performances, if you’ve seen the previous Fast and Furious films, then you know that the actors can play their roles in their sleep. As usual, Diesel is always super serious and thinks he’s starring in some Oscar contender. The person that gets the joke is Momoa, who appears to be winking at the audience with his performance as the film’s villain and he looks like he’s having a blast.

Just like with every other big blockbuster these days, the film’s way too long. A lot of scenes could’ve been cut out and made shorter. Since this is the first of the 3 films that will end the series, this one ended with a cliffhanger. This isn’t the worst film in the series but quite forgettable. If you ask me what this film was about in about a week or so, I probably won’t remember it.

Have you seen Fast X? I’d love to hear what you think!