I've been seriously lacking in the review writing department these last few weeks, my last review was the slightly terrible Gangster Squad which I wrote about a month ago. But I've returned with a new review, this one is for Fast & Furious 6. Check out my review after the jump...
WARNING! REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Another
year another Fast & Furious film graces the multiplex cinema
screens, some might read that
This
time Dom and his crew are 'hired' by Hobbs (The Rock) who asks them
to help him take down a notorious gang of thieves led by the ruthless
Shaw, an ex-black ops soldier and master wheel-man who are trying to
locate the last remaining part of a device to build a bomb. Dom wants
nothing to do with the case as he's stopped running and has a good
life with Elena (the female cop from Fast 5) , Brian and Mia have a
kid and their a family once again. Dom changes his mind when Hobbs
shows him pictures of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) who supposedly died
at the start of F&F4. This forces Dom to take the wheel once
again with Brian in tow as they're a family and family stick
together. Dom and Brian start getting their crew back together. Then
for the next 110 minutes there are explosions, car chases, gun fights
and an exploding plane. That's not really how the plot goes but it's
what basically happens, but then again isn't that what happens in
most movies, you get the set up and then it's GO! GO! GO, on the
pyrotechnics. Don't get me wrong there is a plot within the film but
it comes second to the mayhem that Justin Lin and the Furious crew
bring.
But
if you like fast cars, big men with big guns (and not in a
homo-erotic way), hot girls and 'splosions, you can't go wrong with
this film.
At
the moment it seems like the best thing to do to revive a dying
franchise is to cast Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in your movies, F&F
did it with Fast 5 because of the lower than normal box office of the
fourth and the general dislike for it and it worked, Fast 5 was a
bigger, badder and better beast of a film compare to the over CG'd
look of the fourth. Fast 5 became the highest grossing film of the
franchise and this was due to the inclusion of Johnson. G.I Joe:
Retaliation also decided that Johnson was needed because of the lower
than expected box office takings of Rise Of Cobra (which I think is
a totally awesome film) and I do believe that the sequel has grossed
more than the first, but we can't lay all the praise on the Rock for
that, they did cast Bruce Willis as the 'Original Joe'. But as Hobbs,
Johnson gets to flex his action muscles as the Interpol agent
assigned with recruiting Dom, Brian and the rest of the crew and his
interplay with the cast is fantastic, there are some great scenes
between Hobbs and Taj (Ludacriss) and the way he keeps burning Roman
(Tyrese Gibson) is genuinely funny. I for one would enjoy a Hobbs
spin off.
Vin
Diesel, while looking much much older than he did back in 2000 still
kicks some mighty ass as Dominic Torretto. F&F throught 1,2 and 4
have mostly focussed on Brian, he was the main character focus for
those films (I know Vin wasn't in 2 Fast) but I liked how this was
Dom's movie, this was Dom's time, sure he was more prominent in Fast
5 but he's searching for the woman he loved who he believed was dead
and this is the main focus of Furious 6 and while Diesel might not be
the most diverse actor, he manages to get his emotions across. It's
odd to think that in the space of 14 years Diesel has had a hand in 3
franchise, the Fast And Furious series, the Riddick chronicles and
the Triple X movies with the Return Of Xander Cage apparently on the
horizon and they're all decent but flawed characters, Riddick is
obviously the most obvious anti-hero and Xander Cage was kinda forced
into working as a spy, which by the way is like Barney the purple
Dinosaur working as a spy, they're both so obvious.
Then
we have Brian O'Connor, former L.A PD detective turned criminal
turned FBI agent turned criminal again, this time, Brian isn't the
main focus of the movie which I think was good thing, Brian's had his
time, he got with Mia and now they have a child, it's good that they
focussed more on the Dom character. Paul Walker is his usual surfer
dude self but it would be odd if he wasn't there, like 2 Fast 2
Furious was without Vin. The saddest thing about the cast is how ill
Jordana Brewster looks, she's deathly thing and this is so obvious in
he face, it's quite shocking to see some so pretty look they way she
does now. I watched The Faculty a few weeks back and yes I know that
was made in 1998 and was 15 years ago and people do change, but the
way she looked then compared to how she looks now is quite a
transformation, I hope she's not suffering from any sort of eating
disorder because that would be horrible, but she doesn't look well.
What
it all boils down to though, is Fast And Furious 6 a good film? Yes I
believe it is, well in it's genre it's a good film but you can't
compare a film like this to a film like The King's Speech because
they're from two different worlds (Li'l Simpsons reference for you
there), they're completely different types of films. Now I bet you're
asking your self, did he just compare Fast 6 with the Oscar winning
Kings Speech?, well yes and no, I was just using KS as an example of
being from a whole other genre of films, but in it's genre, that of
the action variety, Fast 6 is a stonker of an action film, it never
lets up from minute 1 and that's what I want from my action films. I
do recommend seeing it especially if you've followed the series. I
enjoyed it thoroughly and can't wait to see what happens in the
seventh film if the post credit's sequence is anything to go by,
which if you don't know by now, or unless you've been living under a
rock for the last 3 months, features a cameo from Jason Statham as
Ian Shaw, which should hopefully tie Tokyo Drift with the rest of the
series. I'm going to give Fast & Furious 6 five stars because it
entertained me immensely...
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