Jason Momoa's Fast X Villain Is A 'Driver Antagonist' Who Is 'Obsessed With Dom Toretto'

There's perhaps no other blockbuster series out there that can compete with the likes of the "Fast and Furious" movies when it comes to original and formidable villains. Remember the first film way back in 2001, in which Johnny Tran was a driver antagonist who was obsessed with Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto? Or how about Deckard Shaw in "Furious 7," who was a driver antagonist obsessed with Dom Toretto? And let's not forget Cipher, the antagonist who mostly relies on AI to do her driving for her but is also obsessed with Dom Toretto.

Okay, fine, so the villains in this franchise have a history of being somewhat, uh, lacking and one-dimensional as far as motivations go. Chances are, it'll usually come down to people with a knack for driving really fast who also happen to have a pretty big grudge against everyone's favorite bald, muscle-bound driver extraordinaire and his family. So when "Fast X" director Louis Leterrier goes out of his way to claim that this film's big bad will actually live up to the hype, specifically pointing out the two traits he shares with practically every other major antagonist in the franchise, well, it's understandable that some would remain a bit skeptical.

Add Jason Momoa into the mix as the vengeance-seeking Dante straight out of Dom's retconned past and things get slightly more interesting. For once, maybe longtime fans and casual viewers alike can look forward to a villain worthy of taking down Dom and his crew.

The creative team behind the "Fast and Furious" franchise is no stranger to saying some rather wild things to market these soap operas disguised as meathead movies. Without even getting into the Vin Diesel vs The Rock of it all, Diesel's gone ahead and likened the mythology of these movies to J.R.R. Tolkien (seriously, he said that) while co-star Tyrese Gibson decided to compare Diesel to Jesus Christ himself. We're through the looking glass here, people.

He's not the only one feeling particularly spiritual about "Fast X," however. In an extensive interview with Esquire Middle East, director Louis Leterrier teased what audiences can expect from Jason Momoa's villainous Dante, who we met for the first time in the recent trailer:

"Yeah, he's a different type of a villain, not only for the franchise. He's the type of antagonist that I've rarely seen before in any movie. He's the man who has studied his enemy almost like an obsessed fan. He's also the polar opposite of Dom. He's all color and flamboyance. It's the yin and yang, the Christ and the anti-Christ — the anti-Dom."

That's ... definitely one way to describe it! While skeptics might raise an eyebrow at how those involved seem to be a little over-excited about the narrative potential of "Fast X" (as has also been reported, Letterier had to do quite a few rewrites to the script once he joined the project), I for one sincerely hope this movie goes fully biblical on us and delivers the Satan vs God standoff that we deserve from this saga. After all, naming a character Dante couldn't possibly be a coincidence, could it?

All joking aside, Leterrier goes on to make a pretty good point about the one missing ingredient that certainly stands out in retrospect. Of course, the director is referring to the fact that this franchise has been strangely bereft of villains who are actual drivers — as opposed to FBI agents, megalomaniac terrorists, and other obstacles that mostly just happen to require high-tech vehicles because Dom and his crew have high-tech vehicles of their own. What happened to the good ol' days of Owen Shaw driving those bizarre ramp-shaped cars in "Fast & Furious 6" just for the heck of it?

Well, that's one area that "Fast X" will apparently improve upon in a big way. Later in the same interview, Letterrier explained:

"What was really important for me was to bring it back to the car. This franchise is all about cars, but we hadn't seen a driver antagonist for a long time. He's a driver — he grew up driving, being obsessed with Dom Toretto and tried to become him. He's a gearhead just like Dom Toretto, but a very different type of gearhead. They are also polar opposites in their driving styles. The person that keeps their hand on the wheel and the person that lets go. That's very interesting to me, and it's the theme of the entire movie, and the entities that oppose them."

While you might not have expected an empty-calorie tentpole like "Fast X" to have such high thematic aspirations, I say we give this movie a chance to deliver the Odyssean epic of our time — which just so happens to involve, for all intents and purposes, gearhead superheroes.

Just follow the smell of burning rubber as "Fast X" comes to theaters on May 19, 2023.