This week: learn how to maintain continuity.
Title: Fast and Furious 6
Grade: A (entertainment), B- (plot structure)
Starring: Paul Walker (Flags of Our Fathers)
Vin Diesel (The Chronicles of Riddick)
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (G.I. Joe: Retaliation)
No series of films is quite as perplexing as The Fast and the Furious movies. Starting with a successful first and second installment, the third film seemed like the last as it featured none of the original characters and was not as popular as it predecessors. Then Fast and Furious (the fourth movie) brought back the main characters and started a new story that led into the massive change to action/heist film instead of racing movie for Fast Five.
Fast and Furious 6 maintains the continuity with all the previous films and manages to bring them all together for some rather impressive world building. The story is rather basic: Owen Shaw and his squad of car based criminals in Europe look to stealing the pieces to an EMP device and selling it for billions of dollars. Agent Hobbs (“The Rock”) returns from Fast Five, but is working with our heroes (instead of busting them) to take down Shaw using their vehicular expertise. They will be rewarded with full pardons for their life of crime while Dom (Diesel) is drawn in with the revelation that his thought-to-be-deceased girlfriend Letty is working with Shaw.
It maintains a fresh feel by mixing the change to action movie while also sticking to its roots in the street racing aspect. Multiple ties from the previous Fast and Furious movies come into play here and make the whole franchise seem like a solid, coherent story, instead of a bunch of loosely connected racing flicks; which was the direction it was headed in before the fourth film. The writing for the plot isn’t exactly mind-blowing and is sporadically paced. It gets the job done, though, and at its best is definitely above par for this genre; with a few twists and turns thrown in that actually had me surprised.
With the increase in straight up fight scenes in Fast Five, this one is able to easily top it with a large amount of hand-to-hand combat and a good use of Shaw’s custom escape vehicle. And while some of these scenes cut angles so often I can’t tell what is happening, the more important moments pull it out to provide exhilarating action and continuous entertainment that is unmatched by anything 2013 has had to offer so far.
The fairly unknown Luke Evans as Shaw isn’t as interesting or fun to watch as Hobbs was when he was the antagonist (and his intentions aren’t all that defined), but he gets the job done. None of the other actors bring anything knew to their roles, but that is what is great about large casts of distinct characters like this. They all provide a specific role for the movie and, in this genre, they don’t need a lot of development as long as you enjoy watching them interact.
Overall, Fast and Furious 6 (actually titled Furious 6 for the opening title card) is ridiculous, crazy, and over the top, and I absolutely loved it. Most people will probably have their mind made up about this movie before they see it and it most likely won’t change their mind. If you didn’t like the change between 4 and 5, you won’t like the 6th. If you don’t like the series at all this will not revolutionize your opinion, but if you are a fan of this franchise then you will leave with a smile on your face.
On an ending note, they are already planning on Fast and Furious 7. They want to starting shooting this summer and it will be released next July. Take from that as you will. And…oh yeah. “Xbox One”? No backwards compatibility? This is not a good start for Microsoft on this one.
Flattout Studios 