Fast X Is The Beginning Of The End For Dom Toretto’s Family: ‘There’s A War Brewing’

Seatbelts on, Fast fans – the saga is approaching its final few quarter-miles. Hollwood’s ultimate vehicular action series is readying its tenth instalment, Fast X, for the early part of the summer, designed as the first part of a double-whammy send-off for Dom Toretto and co. – and Empire has the world-first look at the latest chapter. See above for a fresh peek at Vin Diesel’s pedal-to-the-metal hero, ready to ride once more with his iconic Dodge Charger. Picking up after 2021’s F9: The Fast Saga, the stakes are raising even higher for the Fast family in Fast X – the continuing threat of Charlize Theron’s ever-lurking villain Cypher bolstered by Jason Momoa’s incoming villain Dante (read more about him here), and twists and turns that will once again have the NOS-boosting crew fighting among themselves.

“There’s a war brewing,” teases incoming director Louis Leterrier, who picked up the reins from filmmaker Justin Lin after the shoot began. “It’s coming to an end, and it is a race to the finish. There will be some tremendous casualties.” Side-switching has long been an integral part of the Fast DNA (it might as well be in every villain’s contract that they’ll return in the following instalment as a hero), and fans can expect a considerable reshuffle of the team as we head into the endgame. “People are going to need to take sides,” Leterrier warns. “Alliances will need to be made. Good guys will become bad guys, bad guys will become good guys.”

When Leterrier joined the production weeks after cameras started rolling (with long-term Fast director Lin citing creative differences as he exited), he stepped up to ground the film in more ways than one – especially after F9 saw the series come closer than ever before to breaching the final frontier with its skybound rocket-booster car. “I’m more practical than other directors, and I brought it back to earth,” he says of Fast X. “We went for real stunts, which we’re enhancing with visual effects. We shot in LA, London, Rio, Portugal. We blew up Hummers flying around Rome. There’ll be some iconic imagery in this one. You will see: as long as Dom Toretto is behind the wheel of a car, there’s nothing he cannot do.” We’ll raise an ice-cold bottle of Corona to that.

Fast X: Jason Momoa’s Villain Tears Dom Toretto’s Family Apart In Super-Sized Trailer

Here’s another ridiculous thing to love about the Fast Saga. As if the insane soap-operatics, gravity-defying (and logic-defying) stunts, bad-guys-gone-good tropes, thrillingly outlandish action, and ever-changing title formats weren’t enough, you can now count on one more thing: the first trailer for each film is going to be a mini-movie in its own right. The Fast X trailer has just arrived, revealing our first proper look at the much-anticipated tenth (11th, including Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw) chapter in series – and it’s four minutes long. A regular-length trailer simply cannot contain the majestic of full-on Fast madness. (Remember, too, that the F9: The Fast Saga trailer was also super-sized.)

Not only is the Fast X trailer here, but it’s got everything: great balls of actual fire; Jason Momoa’s new villain Dante saying, “Boom!”; a ludicrous bit of revisionary Fast-history; beefs that can only be solved by racing in colourful cars; an epic brawl between Letty and Cipher, Rita Moreno as Dom’s abuela; fresh glimpses of Brie Larson’s incoming Tess; and two helicopters taking a fiery tumble after tangling with Dom’s Dodge Charger. It is epic and ridiculous. Watch it now:

Blimey. Doesn’t that look… just bonkers. For one, we get the revelation that Momoa’s villain was, in fact, hiding just behind the vault during Fast Five’s Rio heist. We get Vin Diesel defiantly stating: “You will never be able to break my family.” We get Deckard Shaw teaming up with Han, in what’s surely set to be the coolest subplot. And, we get plenty of hints that this’ll be a Fast film with a bodycount (to be rolled back in Fast 11, should they so need, of course). And to their credit, the action does look suitably epic and bombastic here – it’s tough for these films to keep outdoing themselves, but Fast X somehow looks just as gigantic as its predecessors.

For Fast X, Louis Leterrier steps behind the camera for the first time in the series – though he hopped aboard after shooting had already begun and Fast veteran Justin Lin exited the project. Lin remains a producer and also a co-writer, having penned the screenplay alongside Dan Mazeau.

As ever, the cast is ludicrously (or, Ludacris-ly) huge for this one. Hey, the Fast family is an extended one. Beyond the likes of Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Jordan Brewster, Sung Kang, and Nathalie Emmanuel, this one brings back John Cena as Dom’s brother Jakob, Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw, Scott Eastwood as agent Little Nobody, Helen Mirren as Shaw matriarch Queenie, Cardi B’s F9-cameoing Leysa, and Michael Rooker’s Buddy. Plus, Reacher himself Alan Ritchson is here in his Fast debut, and Charlize Theron’s Cipher is evidently back too. It’s an ensemble so big, no wonder they need a two-part finale.

Buckle up and prepare for Fast X to rev into UK cinemas on 19 May. Who’s bringing the bucket of Coronas? Let's watch the trailer with Gorsun...