The 10th installment of the auto-action-adventure franchise opens strong, flashing back to the credulity-straining but undeniably thrilling “dragged vault” scene from Fast Five, but telling it from the bad guys’ perspective and prefacing it with a speech about how there is nothing a father wouldn’t do for his son Wait, bad guys love their families too? But if family is ultimately all that matters, then how do we tell the good guys from the bad guys here? But then it slows down for those struggling to catch up, and gives us a speech from Abuelita about how Dom Toretto has created a legacy that will go on for generations, that no one can take away, not now, not ever. Foreshadowing! And then it slips up and gets meta, via a snarky speech from a new Mr. Big, who laments that Dom’s “family” is like a cult that recruits devotees via barbecues and beer, and that “if it violates the laws of God and gravity, they did it — twice.” Oof. There are a lot of similarly thudding lines here, some of them delivered by unlikely suspects — Hellen Mirren grumping to Dom, “It ain’t no Roman Holiday, and you’re no Gregory Peck” — and some of them by very likely suspects — Dom asking his wife how she just keeps getting more beautiful, and assuring us that with faith, “nothing is impossible.” And now that the film has gotten self-conscious, they thud all the harder. Set jauntily against all Dom’s preening regular-guy decency is the preening irregular-fellow indecency of Jason Momoa’s villain. See, Dom took away his daddy, and now he’s not just evil and vengeful, he’s flamboyantly, fabulously so, even going so far as to give pedicures to the corpses of his victims and to swoon that Dom is a “big brute.” But villain or no, he’s still got faith on his mind, assuring Dom that “to become a real saint, you have to perform miracles or die a martyr.” He’s got a plan to ensure the latter — after he’s done trashing the aforementioned legacy — but of course, as long as there’s something he can drive, Dom is up for the former. That’s the central dynamic, but there is so, so much else going on. So much, in fact, that nothing much gets resolved here (though somebody does die, at least). You’ll have to come back for the next installment to find out what happens with Dom, his wife, his kid, and the rest of the crew, plus Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, Brie Larson… It’s overlong and over-the-top, but the real trouble is that when a series like this starts acknowledging its its own absurdities, they become harder to enjoy. (2023) — Matthew Lickona