Now Playing: Furiouser and Furiouser…

With more than $1.5 billion in previous sales, Universal rolls out a sixth entry to one of its biggest film franchises this week. Despite awful dialogue and numerous over-the-top, zany action sequences that are more comical than suspenseful, ‘Fast & Furious 6’ will probably push that amount even further. That being said, the movie delivers what its audience has wanted since the first entry. That is, all of the original actors are back this time, even Michelle Rodriguez. I have no doubt this will score big at the box office. At least, Universal seems to think so. The studio has already greenlit Part 7, which will be released next July and promises even more stars and bigger action.

Director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan, who have immersed themselves in this fuel injected world for the last four films, have not let up with this one. It has to be difficult coming up with different and fresh situations for these characters to dive into movie after movie. Luckily for us, Lin and Morgan do a decent job here of not making us feel like we’re watching the same thing over and over. This time around, instead of all the gun violence of previous entries, we receive a healthy dose of fight choreography, including MMA, wrestling and Thai martial arts. If it wasn’t enough for the gang to race and chase exotic cars, Lin adds a giant military tank and large cargo aircraft to the mix. But with Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson all working together this time, there isn’t anything they can’t do, no matter how far-fetched the situation.

As we have come to know these characters over the past twelve years, they come from modest means with a big criminal history. However, they scored $100 million in the last film, which led them to live lavish lives around the world. That changes when Hobbs (Johnson) shows up at Dom’s (Diesel) new place on some remote island and asks to make a deal to help capture a criminal. In return, he and all his friends will be pardoned. The movie starts out very quickly with the entire group coming back together for this job, including Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Han (Sung Kang) and Gisele (Gal Gadot).

The bad guy they’re after is a British terrorist called Shaw (Luke Evans), who wants to acquire a weapon that can destroy an entire country and eventually the planet. The gang, along with Hobbs and his partner Riley (Gina Carano), have their first encounter with him during a chase through the streets of London. They all have nice BMWs this time around, while Shaw drives a custom-built Formula 1 race car that seems to be capable of doing everything the Batmobile can. A few chases later lead to a climax with a tank and a cargo plane that should appease the masses.

The action itself is not executed well. The chase sequences and bigger action scenes are choppy, too quick and poorly staged. Due to the poor angles and fast cuts, not once did I think that the cars were traveling faster than the speed limit. On the other hand, the martial arts fighting is far superior to any of the car chases. I could feel every hit and fall. It’s brutal, but not bloody. I hope that Part 7 has more of this fight choreography, because it definitely works.

Meanwhile, a subplot follows Letty’s (Rodriguez) return to the series. Last time we saw her, she was thought dead, but that’s not the case here. She survived and is part of Shaw’s team. She also has no memory of her past life or friends. This gives Dom and his crew a reason to take this mission and take down Shaw, which ultimately sets up Letty for future sequels.

‘Fast & Furious 6’ is a ridiculous action spectacle that will garner more chuckles and applause for fan favorites than it delivers genuine thrills. The acting is at time atrocious and the dialogue is just below that, but hey, this is a movie about cool cars and violence, which it delivers in truck loads during its 133-minute silly yet fun run-time. Don’t forget to stay seated during the credits for a special peek at the seventh installment that shows a big action icon joining the franchise.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

5 comments

  1. I watched this on rare IMAX showing in east coast (AMC Empire 25 in NYC). It was entertaining. This is not a movie that relies on intelligent dialogue to be successful. For me it was neither good nor awful. I have no issues with chase sequence. A lot of little things were happening (such as braking device). People were not just driving. Some were shooting weapons. I’m not sure how anyone could have done the chase scene better than what the reviewer wanted. It doesn’t make any sense to focus on the cockpit just to get a sense of speed. We all know they were driving dangerously fast. There were other things going on other than speed.

    Perhaps the reason I liked it more was because I had very low expectation. The movie played out almost in line with what you could have guessed from the trailers you’ve been watching for months. You know these people aren’t the Oscar caliber actor/actress. If you know all that, then this film is what it is.

    Unlike the Mandarin clown in Iron Man 3….

  2. Bigger and better is the best way to describe this movie if you are a fan of the franchise. Sure, everyone is excited to see the return of Michelle Rodriguez, but the stunts, both vehicle wise and fighting wise is what really makes this the first summer blockbuster (I agree with the previous poster, Iron Man 3 was lame).

    Yes, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to follow the story (in what Hollywood film do you have to be these days?) but the story is solid with a good balance of action and humor and sexiness coming from the cars or the women.

    Based on the movie I saw, I wouldn’t trust a review from Bryan Kruger in the future, this was a good action summer blockbuster movie that delivered, the chase scenes were done great as they are in every FF movie Justin Lin has done and this movie connects all the movies and even if you never saw any of the previous movies, the movie opens up with montage to get a new viewer up to speed with everything that has happened since the franchises inception.

    Bottom line, outside of Man of Steel, I really don’t see another summer movie being better than this one. If you are wondering what movies I looked forward to seeing, Iron Man 3, Fast & Furious 6, Man of Steel, Star Trek Into Darkness, Kick Ass 2, and The Wolverine.

    • Chapz Kilud

      I tend to think exact opposite of Bryan Kruger. At first I thought that was just because different people have different taste in movies. But then I began to see a lot of his opinions are self-conflicting. For example, in his review for Oblivion he mentioned the picture and sound was exceptional. Then why is the movie not good? His complaint was that it ripped off Wall-E. But Oblivion was very different from Wall-E. People still lived on earth and it was about survivors fighting back against evil aliens. It’s quite a stretch to say that was similar to Wall-E. Then he gave Iron Man 3 more than twice as many stars as Fast & Furious 6 and Oblivion. I’m not saying Fast & Furious 6 was the greatest movie this year nor am I saying Iron Man 3 wasn’t entertaining. But IM3 had so many flaws. He also failed to mention the 3D effects were just average which was almost unacceptable IMO given the budget IM3 spent on special effects and 3D.

      I think Luke Hickman’s review was worth reading than Bryan’s. I don’t need someone to be a sheep and follow the concensus. The review would be more valuable if the reviewer has the independent mind to tell us “Iron Man 3 may be the second fastest selling movie of all time, but I didn’t think it was very good…..”

      • I don’t have opinions on any of these movies, but the similarities between Oblivion and WALL-E are painfully obvious even in the trailer. I don’t know how it’s possible to not see them.

        “For example, in his review for Oblivion he mentioned the picture and sound was exceptional. Then why is the movie not good?”

        I don’t understand the question. These things have absolutely nothing to do with one another.

        • Chapz Kilud

          Trailer does not count and you know that already from Iron Man 3 because everyone thought Mandarin was going to be some powerful dark villain.

          I used Oblivion and Fast & Furious 6 as examples, not that I consider either the greatest movie I saw in 2013.

          There is a major distinction with Oblivion that’s totally different from Wall-E. Human survived and lived on earth. The planet was inhabitable. In Wall-E human (1) left and (2) came back. But both were not the case with Oblivion (except the trailer!). The diagonal prism shaped mothership hardly look anything close to the mothership of Independence Day. I will add blowing it up was the same idea though. Again, I’m being very specific and I’m explaining why the similarity you saw wasn’t obvious to me. I’m sure if we look at the same painting we will see different things.

          As for Fast & Furious 6, if the scene had focused on cockpit or giving you the sense of the dangerous speed, you’d be saying it was not original because it was like the previous movie. But people were shooting weapons and electronic hacking devices. The movie had to incorporate those element into the chase scene. The angles were chosen to capture the little things that were happening. I thought it was done well enough. I certainly wouldn’t be able to do it better.

          A 2.5 star out of 5 is not a very good movie no matter how you cut it. You said the story was made up of many favorite aspects of other films. As I mentioned I failed to see many specific similarities you mentioned. I thought it was integrated very well together and the story did not have that many holes (unlike Iron Man 3). Watching it on IMAX and listening it on Dolby Atmos was quite the experience. Iron Man 3 has a very messy story and most people agree it had many issues. I thought the 3D effects and visuals were just average. But it received from you almost twice the rating as Obivion, and beating out Fast & Furious 6 by 150% in rating.

          That’s not to say your reviews were not valuable. But viewers like “Buttons Mc Boom Boom” probably should take the inverse of your review rating if they are using the reviews to determine if they want to see a particular movie.

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