Fast & Furious 6 is the best super hero movie released so far this year. You might think going in that it's a car movie, or an action film, or a cash grab. An argument can be made for all of those cases, but once you see our heroes and their dopplegangers in action you'll be hard pressed to think of them as anything less than superheroes.
The plot for Furious 6 is very good for a genre film in a franchise that's 6 entries deep. Our heroes, led by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel, also a producer on the franchise since Fast & Furious back in 2009) and Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker, starting to show some signs of aging out of his boyish good looks) are offered the chance to go back to America with full pardons, provided they use their considerable skills to help bring a rival team of criminals to justice. Dom also takes the mission because there's a chance his thought-dead lover Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) could be alive and working with the bad guys. The movie's tagline is "all roads lead to this", and that's mostly true. For a blockbusting action franchise that is now a full 3 movies past when everyone expected it to expire, the story, characters, and references all hit the mark and pay respect to what's come before.
The movie reunites some favorite faces from past entries in the franchise, similar to its predecessor Fast Five. Furious 6 wisely chooses to reduce the number of protagonists in order to streamline the story and let some light shine on the villains. The villains and the action in the film solidify its transition from a street racing drama franchise into a full on physics breaking extravaganza. The characters survive injuries that would, and do, kill anyone else, even in the universe of the film series. Cars flip, buildings explode, shots are fired, and in the most crowd-pleasing moment in the film, a man managed to perfectly steer his car into a freeway railing, dive into the air, catch another person, and crash safely into a car across the way. This occurs with them traveling around 70 miles per hour in a fight with a tank. They joy and the disbelief in the franchise is in full force here.
The villains of the film are a definite improvement over the antagonists in Fast Five. In the tradition of Bizarro for Superman, this film introduces the cabal of evil doubles. Led by Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), this gang of rival criminals is a great match for our heroes. Shaw's gang differs from Dom's in that they have no problems with killing innocents and they behave as a job, not a family. Franchise fans will know that family is an important theme for the series, and its in full force here. All the members of the crew risk and sacrifice in order to help each other. The stakes are high, and despite the cartoon nature of the stunts, you see and feel that the crew is facing real danger this time.
The movie is good. Unlike many other long running franchise, the FF series always tries to do new things, and to push boundaries. While it never tops Fast Five's use of bank vaults as siege weapons, it does do stunts audiences likely haven't seen before. While the series started out focused on street racing, it has turned to using the cars themselves as the crux of the stunts. The aforementioned tank chase takes place on a busy freeway. The villains have access to cars built for flipping other cars over, and for no other purpose. The nature of that invention even has the characters making comparisons to James Bond's more ridiculous gadgets. Cars have speed, weight, and noise and the movie uses all of those to make some jaw dropping movie magic.
This movie has plenty of bad too, depending on your tastes. The acting ranges from fine to the best kind of bad. Vin Diesel sounds like his name, deep and gravelly the whole movie. As stated, the movie plays fast and loose with Newton's laws, which can be a breaking point for some viewers. Ideally, no one will be made to see this movie against their will. This is because anyone who wants to see this movie will enjoy it. It's a case of the viewer getting what they pay for.
This is a loud movie that's best served with friends. There's so much going on that you're never bored, and enough big moves are thrown at you that there's loads to talk about with your friends after the movie is over and the light comes back on. It's not deep and it's not earth shattering, but it's confident and it's competent. Behind the scenes, the crew has a familiar and comfortable vibe going, and it shows onscreen. After 4 movies together, writer Chris Morgan, director Justin Lin, the actors, and the production team all play off each other's strengths and deliver a high-revved punch to your adrenaline gland. Highly recommended, 4/5 stars.
