Fast & Furious 6 Review

When a film franchise starts getting into the crazy numbers like movie 4,5,6 the credibility, originality and reasons for making the films seems to disappear at the sound of money. With Fast & Furious franchise it seems to the opposite effect having resuscitating life back into movie 5 probably thanks to Mr franchise Viagra Dwayne Johnson. Now all the gang is back together for Fast & Furious 6 what can they do to excel the success of the previous film? Get more ridiculously OTT but most of all fun!

Fast & Furious 6 sees Dom and the gang (or family) head to Europe when a unlikely source Luke Hobbs (Johnson) calls on their help to track down, capture super criminal Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) in return for their ‘driving’ expertise. In return Dom is offered full pardons for himself and his family, at first he’s not convinced however when Hobbs presents him an image of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) whom everyone believed was dead is actually part of Shaw’s gang seals the deal.

Moving from a film based on illegal car racing to a heist film with cars was the best move the franchise could make. Whether you could say you can say movie 6 or 5 (or vice versa) is better is up for debate as both have their moments. Whilst the acting is questionable at times Gina Carano sadly one of the weakest, shame she couldn’t matching her acting skills her fighting skills which are second to none. The script was more solid but still not great however you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know the star of the show is the action.

The action is absurdly exciting devastatingly fun its like as if Justin Lin he personally wrote the dictionary definition of OTT, with 2 scenes particular will have action junkies wetting themselves with excitement. A scene on a bridge in Spain deliver some superhuman jumps, crunching tanks which are breathtaking and laughable at the same time so if tanks don’t rock your boat maybe the spectacular ambitious ending with a cargo plane might do the trick. Majority of the film takes place in London opening in the city with a thrilling car chase through the city’s streets (and Glasgow’s which doubles up as London). 2 of the new cast additions Gina Carano along with The Raid‘s Joe Taslim deliver a beatdown to Rodriguez, Gibson and Kang delivering one of the films best non-car action scenes in a London underground station.

Going back to the script which loses its momentum when it decides to go into soap opera territory family this family that family everything, it makes you wonder if writer Chris Morgan actually wrote this in a London hotel whilst Eastenders was playing in the background on TV? In his defence, I will say bringing Letty back into the fold does give the film some determined passion for motivating the family to succeed. The film’s dialogue has more cheese in it than the dairy aisle at your local supermarket it makes you wonder if this was done deliberately like the innuendos. The best dialogue is between Hollywood’s very own Morecambe And Wise Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris, Gibson seems to be the franchise’s resident clown pumping out some corny one-liners with ‘Samoan Thor’ towards Dwayne Johnson one of the highlights!

Fast & Furious 6 may not be the best movie of the franchise however it’s a close second to movie 5. The action is non-stop, exciting as well as ridiculous, the humour is trademark franchise but things are let down by a script that delves too much into soap opera territory. A word of warning if you have watched no trailers and you plan to watch this film, watch the trailers after the film as they will spoil your enjoyment as they give away too much. Don’t leave as the end credits start as halfway through we get a nice little teaser setting things up nicely for movie 7.