Fast and Furious 6: Review

The most recent addition to the Fast and Furious ensemble is the aptly titled sixth film “Fast and Furious 6.”  Many critics are abuzz about the movie, and very few have negative comments on the overall quality of the film.  Rottentomatoes.com (which I believe to be the most trustworthy, albeit not always correct, source for movie reviews) gave the movie a 72%.  This is slightly below the Iron Man 3 78% and Star Trek: Into Darkness 87%.  However, it still trumps many of the most recent box office busts in Will and Jaden Smith’s After Earth (11%) and The Hangover Part III (20%). Here is a link to the rottentomatoes.com review and a review by Anthony Lane of the New Yorker.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fast_and_furious_6/

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/fast_furious_6_lin

I’d like to now get into why I believe Fast and Furious 6 was a very good movie and why the entire series has been revitalized with the last two installments (Fast Five and Fast and Furious 6).  The Fast and Furious series needed a fresh restart after the failures of Tokyo Drift and Fast and Furious.  The story lines for both of those movies left most fans of the series with a sense of disappointment.  Fast and Furious set the scene for the next two movies with Paul Walker (Brian O’Conor) and Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto) reuniting against a common enemy in a Mexican Drug Cartel.  What Fast and Furious lacked that Fast Five and Fast and Furious 6 brought to the table is simple: ridiculous over the top car scenes that are seemingly, and often definitively, unrealistic yet exciting and eye-catching.  They lacked much depth in the story and overall character development.  However, what replaced these factors were glamorous location shots, fast cars performing seemingly physics defying stunts, and of course you cant overlook the beautiful women.  This was like finding out how to control electricity, all of a sudden Fast Five seemed to have grabbed what it meant to be a Fast and Furious movie and harnessed it for the good of all.  In the opneing scens of Fast Five Paul Walker and Vin Diesel drive what is likley a high six figure car over a cliff down a couple hundred foot drop into a rvier.  The two walk away from teh crash unscathed and live to fight another day.  I believe it was at this point that people and the people behind the Fast and Furious series realized what the next step for the franchise should be. Enter Fast and Furious 6, Toretto and his team are all living spectacular lives after having robbed one of the biggest crime bosses in Rio De Janeiro.  Cut to US Military officer Hobbs, The Rock, who has come across a very militaristic criminal who specializes in automotive warfare.  Hobbs, The Rock, knows that there is only one group of people in the world who can stop this guy.  Right from the beginning of the action you can tell this is not the same Fast and Furious movie we have seen before. Without ruining the movie for anyone, the action is fast, big, and most certainly unrealistic.  However, this seems to be the best way for these movies to be.  The bigger the crashes and stunts, the more unrealistic the movie is the more it seems to feel at home with what the franchise was meant to be.  Fast and Furious is about simply that, being fast and furious.  Fast and Furious 6 most certainly delivers on the title’s promise from start to finish and it will not disappoint anyone who sees it.

With the continued expansion of the franchise with Fast and Furious 7, it will be interesting to see where the team behind these high octane thrillers take the characters and story next.

*Spoiler Alert*

P.S. Fast and Furious 7 will take place back in Tokyo where the flop of a movie Tokyo Drift took place.  The story will likely center around the grief stricken Han after losing his love Gisele in Fast and Furious 6.  Hopefully Godzilla’s Playground can drift the series potentially closer to the finish line and not into the garbage.

Also what the hell is Dom thinking leaving Elena to get back with Letty.  Big mistake in my books.

 

-Jayto Descartes