How entertaining? ★★★★★
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 14 May 2013
This article is a review of FAST & FURIOUS 6.
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“You've got the best crew in the world standing right in front of you, give them a reason to stay,” Dominic Toretto
When was the last time the sixth in a franchise still remained an anticipated event? DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER perhaps, or STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY? Thanks to the out-of-nowhere ridiculous fun of FAST 5, the latest edition is being entered into the summer blockbuster release schedule. The series has definitely been patchy:
- The first entry felt like sub-POINT BREAK,
- The best thing about 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS was the title,
- TOKYO DRIFT jettisoned the cast, bar a brief cameo, and injected style and enjoyment,
- Number four reassembled the original crew and fatally went for crummy CGI that removed the thrill factor, and then
- The barnstorming fifth instalment delivered a rollicksome ride, bringing everyone back from the other flicks and adding in man-charisma-mountain, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
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Left on a cliffhanger at the prologue of FIVE, the previously assumed dead beloved squeeze, Letty (Michelle Rodrigues), of Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), has been found alive and running with a particularly nefarious crew attacking military convoys. Post credits of 6, we see the aftermath in Moscow, as Johnson’s Agent Hobbs surveys the wreckage with new teammate, the bad-ass Gina Carano (HAYWIRE). Interpol and the Diplomatic Security Service are unable to catch the gang’s head, ex-special forces Owen Shaw. The only recourse? You got it! Toretto and Brian O’Connor’s equally adroit crew are enlisted. Wanted criminals themselves, but of the nice variety, they agree only in exchange for pardons. So begins a two-hour globetrotting guilty pleasure of dubious merits, but including an endearing formula of vehicular mayhem plus willingness to laugh at itself.
“This code you live by makes you predictable. In our line of work predictable makes you vulnerable. I can reach out and break you any time I want,” Owen Shaw
There are four outstanding action sequences. London gets an automobile battering as souped-up armoured formula-one style cars (yep, you read that right), leave a plethora of cop and passenger motors strewn across pavements. Then there’s a first for the FAST films, an extended fisticuffs melee, set within the underground tube network. Mixed martial artist Carano would probably take everyone out in real life, but Letty proves a tenacious foe. The motorway heist and counter-heist puts to shame the highway mash-up in THE MATRIX RELOADED. And I wonder if the climax will be shared in Disney’s PLANES later this summer? (I doubt it.)
The prologue here is an absolutely doozy, tying together TOKYO DRIFT, creating a mythology and time lines for the series, and setting up a potentially even more imposing adversary.
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