Fast X

I've never seen a Fast & Furious movie. After seeing FAST X on opening night in a Dolby Cinema theater that set my Apple Watch decibel alarm off three times, am I likely to go back and watch any of the previous IX?

Let's come back to that.

Why don't we start with why I've never watched one F&F film. Primarily, I think Vin Diesel's only good film role is Groot. He has three words of dialogue and delivers them well.

His 2002 action film "xXx" was the last time I walked out of a theater halfway through a movie. He's a brick.

If actors are a blank canvas, this guy is a virtual black hole. I have done an incredible job avoiding every Vin Diesel film since "Saving Private Ryan". Watching him on screen next to Helen Mirren or Rita Moreno (wait Rita Moreno is in this too!?) only highlights how stiff he is. It's painful.

But I have to admire any film series that makes it to ten films and still manages to teeter on $1 billion at the box office with each installment.

So I buckled in and buckled up and sat down opening night for FAST X.

The two friends in attendance with me said that I was missing a lot of backstory and I believe it. There are a LOT of movie stars peppered into the 2 hour and 21 minute running time, it's like "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" with hot cars.

Everyone seems to either be part of Dominic Toretto's family or trying to kill that same group. Bad guys become good guys, good guys turn out to be bad guys and it all really didn't matter to me very much.

I was too busy having my eyeballs and eardrums assaulted by some undeniably great action sequences to pay too much attention to motivation. This is the kind of pure popcorn summer flick that you just want to sit back and accept. If you start thinking or applying logic, the burning rubber-scented house of cards collapses quickly.

There is a sequence early in the film with a massive steel neutron bomb ball crashing through the streets of Rome. It's fantastic from start to finish. Absurd AND ridiculous but beautifully shot and executed with practical and CGI effects.

Director Louis Leterrier has made some of my favorite goofy thrillers of the past 20 years, including "The Transporter" and "Now You See Me". He's the right man for the action scenes, which are jaw dropping and a lot of fun (and really dumb in all the right ways).

Beyond Diesel, the stars are all having a blast. The highlights for me include Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Michelle Rodriguez (Dungeons & Dragons) squaring off in a hand to hand fight for the ages, Helen Mirren (Excalibur) dropping in with a touch of class and advice for Dom, Jason Statham (Spy) doing his patented Statham-brand blend or wry humor and ass-kicking all over the globe, John Cena (The Suicide Squad) delivering big laughs and heart as Dom's much more charismatic brother Jakob and Brie Larson showing ten times more personality than she does as Captain Marvel.

Alan Richtson (Reacher) brings great presence to the last half of the film as Aimes, the new head of "The Agency", which I knew nothing about but quickly gathered that its loyalties shift faster than the CIA's.

Towering above the enormous cast is Jason Momoa as the flamboyant, insane and seriously damaged villain out to destroy everything Dom has built. As Dante, the son of the villain from an earlier installment, Momoa is surprisingly unhinged in his quest for revenge. He's also hilarious and relentless. I like Momoa as Aquaman, but he's ten times more fun here than he's ever been in the DC Universe.

The final twenty minutes is so off the rails, I kept waiting for someone to fly into outer space, but I heard later that actually happened in the last movie, so what do I know?

Kicking off the summer movie season alongside the final "Guardians" installment, FAST X is a goofy but fun diversion.

With a budget of $340 million, this movie costs almost three times as much as "John Wick 4". It's certainly not three times as good or even 1/3 as good as JW4, but it has its moments.

There's no denying that it leaves you hanging for more. As Diesel said this week on several promotional stops, this is just the first of a three-part final chapter. Talk about a dam cliffhanger!

Make sure and stick halfway through the credits for one additional scene that got big cheers from our sold out audience.

So...am I going to go back and watch the first nine films in the series?

I'm not in any rush, but I'll definitely be back to watch the next installment to see what happens next.

FAST X gets a mindless B-.