Big. Dumb. Action.
That basically sums up today’s movie, 2013’s Fast & Furious 6. Or is it just Fast 6 as it read in the opening credits? Does it matter?
The sixth movie in this series. I think Part 5 was probably my favorite of the bunch. Bigger and Better than all its predecessors. So this one would be even bigger and better right?
Wrong.
Okay, bigger yes. The action was definitely much bigger – but better, no I don’t think I can say so. In fact, a lot of the time I was rolling my eyes or shaking my head, even more so than with the previous five. I still can’t believe that this crew is supposed to be the “best in the world” at what they do. They definitely pull it off it this movie, but what in the hell in their pasts makes me believe they SHOULD be able to pull this stuff off?
The movie basically picks up again where the last one leaves off. Paul Walker and Vin Diesel are racing along a shoreline high way. I thought it might be the race they were setting up to do at the end of part 5, but in fact they were racing to get to Jordana Brewster in time before she has her baby. So did she drive herself to the hospital?
Anywho, Dwayne Johns…oh hell – The Rock shows up and says he has a job for Vin Diesel to bring down a guy is working with the not dead Michelle Rodriguez (she just rubs me the wrong way, not “Henry Rollins” level wrong way, but I am just not a fan). Yup she’s alive, and even better:
She lost her memory!
(pause for eye roll)
That’s right! She doesn’t remember her old life or Vin Diesel – but for some reason she remembers that she loves driving cars and she remembers that she’s a master criminal.
I almost don’t want to waste any more time going into the plot. The plot is mainly irrelevant to me. The characters and the delivery of their lines is irrelevant to me. Sure I wish they were better – or even good – but that really isn’t what these movies are about. It’s about the action.
And dammit this movie has two amazing action sequences that taught me one thing.
Almost everybody in this movie has super powers.
It has to be right? People jumping on cars and off cars and out of cars and into cars. No problem. People rolling cars for miles. No problem.
Vin Diesel jumps out of a car on one side of a bridge – jumps over the opening between the lanes – catches Michelle Rodriguez (who was just blown off a frigging tank) – and, I assume – flies to the other side of the bridge, turns his body to brace for impact – lands on the roof/windshield of another car.
And is totally effing fine.
And that was not even the climax of the movie.
The final action scene of this movie is pretty spectacular if not utterly ridiculous. It all revolves around not letting a plane land – and of course they succeed. We do lose Gal Gadot in the process – apparently she does not have super powers. Yet.
A few things of note:
- Even though all the good guys escape the giant bridge scene with a tank, there had to have been dozens (if not more) of innocent bystanders killed. You’d think maybe they’d take a moment to feel bad for all the useless death….
- Han!!!!! Oh Han. It looks like our time with Sung Kang is over, but that little capper scene at the end – where we see a scene from Tokyo Drift from a different angle – was pretty cool and is leading us right up to Furious 7.
- Seeing Paul Walker at all with the baby was sad. This is the last F/F movie he was able to do completely. I’ll be morbidly interested to see how they handle everything next time.
Again this movie was pretty dumb and ridiculous – and yet there were moments when it was still kinda awesome – and by the time it was done I was ready to see Furious 7. However, this may be my last F/F listing for the movie month this year, unless I get to a theater while it’s still available and I still can. I doubt it will happen – so maybe I’ll have to hold off on F7 until…next year?
22 DOWN. 8 TO GO.
