Last night myself and some brethren journeyed out into the
wilds of the Philadelphia suburbs to see the ode to masculinity that is “Fast
& Furious 6,” or as the opening credits dubbed it “Furious 6.” True story.
All these
hours later, I still can’t tell if that’s cool or not.
Whatever
you’d like to call it, this movie picks up where its predecessor, 2011’s “Fast
Five,” left off.
Don’t
worry. I’m not going to summarize the other four installments of the franchise,
because, well, I haven’t seen them. Until The Rock joined the franchise in part
five, it wasn’t even on my radar. After all, I know nothing about cars and I drive
super slow, so what could a franchise dedicated to folks who live their lives a
quarter mile at a time hold for a guy like me, who lives his life doing 5 under
the speed limit?
But
then they hired The Rock and everything changed. Part five saw our hero Dom
Toretta (Vin Diesel) and his lovable gang of street racers and thieves doing
battle with a sinister Brazilian drug lord, while being pursued by a relentless
and heavily muscled cop (The Rock).
Spoiler
alert: The anti-heroes beat the drug lord by working with the cop, a tenuous
bond is formed and we all go our separate ways. Until now.
In part
6, the cop needs help catching a team of highly-skilled ex-military drivers
turned terrorists, one of whom just happens to be Dom’s old squeeze Letty
(Michelle Rodriguez) who everyone thought died during one of the movies I didn’t
see. Well, she didn’t.
The cop
promises Dom and crew full pardons as well as a chance to get close to Letty is
he gets his gang back together for one last job to bring the terrorist types
down.
The
terrorist types are stealing, piece-by-piece, the parts to make some kind of James
Bondian-super weapon that will turn off all the world’s lights or something.
Someone gives a quick speech about it at one point, but it’s kind of unclear.
So Dom tracks down new-father Paul Walker,
playboy Tyrese, knucklehead Ludacris and adorable boyfriend and girlfriend Sung
Kang and Gal Gadot to catch the baddies. I think that’s everybody.
From
there, lots of car chases, explosions, double-crossing and sloppy policework
ensue.
But the
real question in all this is “Furious 6” any good? The answer is easy, if you
liked part five, since that’s all I have to compare it to, then you’ll like
this one.
Like “Fast
Five,” this one is needlessly over-plotted, about 30 minutes too long and yet
still manages to feature way too little of The Rock. Also the main villain,
played by Luke Evans, is kinda meh.
At one
point Paul Walker goes to America at immense personal risk (he pretty much
twists his own arm) to learn something that doesn’t seem to matter, learns it,
and then heads back to Europe to join the rest of the crew, where - surprise
surprise - no one cares at all about what he learned and it gets pretty much
forgotten about.
Still
though, there’s lots of fun to be had here. The characters in Dom’s band of
merry men all have delightful chemistry with each other. The Rock is always a
treat and he once again owns in his limited screen time.
We also
get some great hand-to-hand fights scenes, including a standout two-on-one
match in the “tube” as the Brits call the subway. The action is awesome, the
effects are done well and there’s plenty of comedy.
Plus,
another spoiler, there’s a quick stinger during the end credits that sets up
part seven’s villain, who seems like he’s going to be incredible. The only
downside? The reveal is so cool, it kind of makes part six feel like a
placeholder to get to an even bigger movie.
But it’s
a minor quarrel. I enjoyed “Furious 6” even if I didn’t always understand why
the characters were doing the things they were doing or just didn’t care in
some cases.
My
colleagues agreed, well worth the trip to the Cineplex.
I’d
give it a nice solid B-.
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