"Furious 6" Is Just as Stupid, Insane, and Awesome as You Can Imagine

Directed by Justin Lin, written by Chris Morgan, starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans, Gina Carrano, and Michelle Rodriguez - Rated PG-13

 

 

Ha ha...so stupid, but so great.

 

 

 

 

 

Having recently broken my “no comedy reviews” rule, I inevitably began to think about how pointless a lot of reviews are when it comes to summer movies and sequels.  I suppose it’s because I have to go from reviewing The Hangover Part III to Fast & Furious 6 (simply titled Furious 6 in the actual film).  How could reviews matter when it comes to two series that have gone on this long?  This could explain why I’m writing this review over a week after I watched this movie.  The Fast franchise is just as hard and pointless to review as comedies.  So I don’t think it was any loss that I didn’t get around to writing the review until now.  I’m just going to use this space to go into detail about why I love this movie for all its stupidity and awesomeness (and possibly get into whether or not embracing stupidity makes it okay).  If you still want some kind of normal review, here’s this: If you liked Fast 5, how could you not like Furious 6?

 

Now I’ll get into why I like this crap (and I’ll probably spoil some of the action scenes so if you haven’t seen the film yet, you might want to skip out on this review, but honestly, why are you reading a Furious 6 review a week and a half after it came out when you haven’t seen it yet?).  This franchise is so stupid I can’t help but love what it has become.  The sixth installment is similar to the fifth in that’s it’s Ocean’s 11 with less famous actors.  It makes little to no sense for these characters to come together a second time.  They are all millionaires now.  Paul Walker has an infant for crying out loud!  Why would everyone just drop everything and put their lives at risk? 

 

I know that Michelle Rodriguez is back (ugh) so that’s why Vin Diesel has to go.  And Paul Walker has to help family even if it means putting his own new family at severe risk.  (Bonus point to the writers for making Jordana Brewster the anti-Adrian to Walker’s Rocky by insisting that he leaves her and their child to go risk his life before Walker can even discuss it with her.)  But why do all the others drop what they’re doing for this?  Pardons?  They all seemed to be doing quite fine without them, but whatever. 

 

It’s actually great that there is little to no reluctance for the crew to get back together.  Who wants to spend a half hour watching all these characters we already know (or at least sort of remember) slowly get back together?  We all just want to see fast cars and ridiculous action, and Furious 6 does not disappoint.

 

Fast 5 had some idiotic and awesome action scenes, but somehow Furious 6 surpasses it, at least in idiocy.  Forget the tank and car driving through a plane that you saw in the previews; this film features Vin Diesel slingshotting himself from the hood of a speeding car to fly across the lanes of a suspension bridge to catch Michelle Rodriguez in mid-air after she had been tossed from a tank that had suddenly been anchored by a wrecked car that Walker had attached to it.  Diesel, of course, catches her and they fly to safety by slamming into the windshield of a stopped car.  That might be one of the dumbest bits of action that was meant to be taken at least a little seriously that I have ever seen.  I was laughing aloud during the whole sequence, but I cracked up the most when Rodriguez later says, “How did you know that car would be there to break our fall?”  Are you kidding me?  That was the crazy part, Michelle? 

 

As idiotic as that scene was, it was still pretty awesome.  And that sums up this film: Awesome stupidity.  This is a film that can’t allow simple conversation to happen without tossing in a gunshot or making the camera swing a 360 around the actors a la Tony Scott.  In other words, the filmmakers know what their audience wants to see. 

 

The Rock and Diesel were enemies last time, but now that they’re on the same side, we definitely needed to see them team up for a fight, right?  That part, along with the jokes about The Rock using baby oil, was great.  Most of the hand to hand fights in general were very good, most notably a lengthy fight between Rodriguez and Gina Carrano.  Of course, the cars take center stage at times.  This time around, the villains use these F1 cars that can flip regular cars around with ease.  Any scenes featuring these cars were pretty cool.  Oh, and The Rock just deciding out of nowhere to jump out of a moving vehicle (that he was driving) from a bridge to the top of a car below was hilarious…and awesome. 

 

Furious 6 is more than just stupidity and fun, though.  Director Justin Lin (who is unfortunately leaving the franchise) films action as good as anyone these days.  He doesn’t have a distinct style or anything, but you get to see how massive and amazing the action is.  Lin doesn’t indulge in slo-mo or add CG to every bit of action, and it is always very clear what is happening onscreen.  He leaves every dime on the screen and the film is better for it.  Lin’s direction is the opposite of what Walker’s character says during one of the film’s action scenes: “We do what we do best: improvise.”  I’ll allow that the decisions the characters make are not thought out at all, and they basically wing it throughout.  Improvisation in an action film is very complicated, though.  It’s one thing for a group of writers to sit around and say, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if…” and another to actually film those ideas.  Hats off to Lin for taking some crazy ideas and making them happen.

 

As condescending as I’ve been about Furious 6, it really was one of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen this year.  It’s okay for an over-the-top action movie to be stupid throughout as long as it’s entertaining.  I had a good time watching this movie with my friends, and that’s all a film needs to do to be considered a success in my book.

"Fast Five"

Fast Five - Directed by Justin Lin, written by Chris Morgan, starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Dwayne Johnson - Rated PG-13

Bring on five more...?

The Fast/Furious franchise is one of the most unlikely properties to still be up and running…and stronger than ever. The first one was fun in an idiotic, Point Break with cars kind of way. The second one was just sort of there. The third was a failed attempt to reboot the series in Tokyo. The fourth one worked in a nostalgic sense because it reunited the original cast. What is the point of a fifth movie? And once there’s a fifth film, isn’t a series entering parody territory? Not necessarily.

Fast Five works because the series has changed into this hybrid of a car movie and a heist movie a la Ocean’s 11. That may seem like a bad fit or even a goofy one, but it ends up being plenty of fun. Part of that is the cast, which consists of pretty much every character from past films (save the ones that died), but the bigger part is the ambition of the film. Who would have thought that one of the most over the top, entertaining action movies in recent memory would be Fast Five?

All surprise aside, Fast Five delivers exactly what its audience wants. First off, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are back, along with Jordana Brewster. Those familiar faces instantly make you recall the first film, which most fans consider to be the best. The addition of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson should be enough to excite the action fan in you if you’re not a fan of the original cast.

The story of Fast Five plays out in Rio. Dom, Brian, and Mia are on the lam after busting Dom out of federal custody. While in Brazil, they figure if they steal enough money from the local drug czar then they can disappear forever. To steal all of the money the trio needs the help of pretty much everyone they’ve ever dealt with before. Since the gang is so high profile, the FBI has sent in their heavy hitter, Hobbs (Johnson), to bring them all in.

Fast Five is all about going bigger. The film begins with a ridiculous action set piece and never lets up. Vehicles slam into speeding trains. Super-expensive cars fly out of said train only to then drive right off a cliff. That vague description only covers the first twenty minutes or so. Fast Five is nothing if not relentless, in a good way. The movie, though clocking in a bit long at two plus hours, manages to move at a brisk pace, never slowing down long enough for you to start questioning the logic of anything happening onscreen.

Logic doesn’t apply to this film. That’s not a problem. If the film had been filled with CG action scenes, it would have been a harder pill to swallow. But thankfully, Fast Five keeps most of its action practical…or at least it looks practical and that’s all that matters. In a movie about cars, you want to see real cars in the middle of real stunts. Fast Five certainly delivers on that point.

The non-automobile action is decent, as well. A major draw for this film was the showdown between the two hulking bald dudes: Johnson and Diesel. Johnson dwarfs Diesel and makes him look like a child, by the way. It’s still a pretty good matchup and their fight scenes play out like something out of a Godzilla movie.

Dwayne Johnson is a perfect fit for a movie like this. He gets to tell people what to do, stare people down, wear Under Armor, and sweat profusely, all while sporting a massive goatee. In other words, he gets to play The Rock…with a goatee. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There is a little something wrong with that Southern accent he threw in a few times, but it’s forgivable. The rest of the cast doesn’t fare so well. Paul Walker is still the weak link of the series. He’s okay in the action scenes, but when he has to play a person with emotions or a personality he fails more often than not. Diesel holds most of the film together with his odd…charisma? But the guy still mumbles most of his lines and looks painfully awkward in the lighthearted scenes. Fortunately, the rest of the cast handles the comedic relief. Some of it is a bit lowbrow (literally toilet humor at one point), but it’s all in good fun.

It’s a bit odd to claim enjoyment for a film with a “five” in the title, but you shouldn’t judge a movie by its title. Sure, this movie looks like a Dodge commercial at times, but isn’t product placement warranted in a car movie? Are the two leads mediocre? Yeah, but they have developed some odd kind of chemistry that works. Should you ask any of these questions about Fast Five? Nope. Check it out for a crazy good time.

Random Thoughts (SPOILERS)

How many people were killed in that vault sequence? Sure, they went to a lot of trouble to show everyone getting out of the way just in time, but there must have been scores of innocent people who were killed...and all for the greed of Vin Diesel and his cronies.

It's a good thing Brazil has all those superfast, cool cop cars…

The whole movie is a bit ridiculous, but the most unrealistic aspect: Vin Diesel kicking The Rock's ass. C'mon! (That last word is in italics to show that it should read as if Gob Bluth is saying it.)

One thing that put on the positive side for the last Fast movie was the fact that they killed off Michelle Rodriguez, whose character annoyed me to no end. Then, in an after credits sequence, it's revealed that she's actually still alive somehow...

...I instantly dislike the next one now.