3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and somewhat generously, for intense and relentless violence, action and mayhem, along with occasional profanity and sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.24.13
Longest...
...airport...
...runway...
...ever.
The Fast & Furious series
has long been known for physics-defying stunts that strain credibility, while
nonetheless inspiring well-deserved admiration for the way so many of these
crazy chases and assorted skirmishes look (somewhat) authentic, as opposed to
the obvious fakery of computer-enhanced sweetening. (Make no mistake: CGI plays
an important role in these films, but much of the driving is real.)
Even by those standards, however, Fast & Furious 6 boasts audacious, jaw-dropping set-pieces that are just
plain nuts.
But they’re also tautly edited,
reasonably suspenseful and quite entertaining. As comic book movies go, this
series delivers ingenious thrills ... even if they are guaranteed to make
mechanical and aerospace engineers snort with laughter.
Director Justin Lin and
screenwriter Chris Morgan deserve considerable credit. They’ve collaborated on
four of these films now — all but the first two — and they have the formula
down cold. Take an ever-expanding “family” of familiar characters, grant them
plenty of interactive banter, season with vehicular chases every 15 minutes or
so, and blend with aggressive punching matches between good guys and bad guys,
usually one on one, but sometimes two on two.
Toss in a James Bondian “head
villain” with an equally malevolent sidekick, spice with babe shots — because
under-dressed women are such an essential part of street-racing — and call it a
movie.
And yes, before you ask: Morgan
already is scripting Fast & Furious 7 for new director James Wan (Saw, Insidious), which will add Jason Statham to the mix when it roars into
theaters next summer.
It’s all absolute and utter
nonsense, but thrilling and adrenaline-pumping nonetheless. No doubt responding
to demands for bigger and better, Lin and Morgan have customized 6 with
road-rage chases involving all manner of souped-up cars, not to mention a tank
and a massive Antonov 124 cargo plane (!). And yes, the latter eye-widening
melee, during which half a dozen four-wheeled vehicles try to prevent said
plane from lifting off, occupies 15 climactic minutes, during which the
accelerating plane magically never runs out of runway.
Heck, even allowing for the
cross-cutting needed to show simultaneous action on the ground and inside the
plane, I figure that runway must’ve stretched at least 20 miles. Land must be
cheap in Spain.
Lin gets plenty of capable help
from cinematographer Stephen F. Windon and editors Christian Wagner and Kelly
Matsumoto, all series veterans; they definitely make a winning team. One also
has to smile at the massive thunk sound designer Peter Brown inserts, every
time a racing driver shifts up or down. This may be popcorn nonsense, but it’s
slickly made nonsense.
With previous entries having
exhausted locations in Los Angeles, Miami, Tokyo, Mexico and Rio de Janeiro,
this time the action is based in the UK — London, Liverpool and Glasgow — with
a few supposed visits to Spain (actually studio work).
Following their successful heist
in 5, our crew of anti-heroes has settled around the world. Brian (Paul
Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are new parents in the Canary Islands, with
Dom (Vin Diesel) and Elena (Elsa Pataky) living close by. Han (Sung Kang) and
Gisele (Gal Gadot) are enjoying Hong Kong; Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) is in
Costa Rica; and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) jets to exotic locales when the mood
strikes.
All concerned are saved from
succumbing to boredom when tough-as-nails federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne
Johnson) confronts Dom with an assignment he literally cannot refuse. A
paramilitary-trained criminal mastermind — Luke Evans, as Shaw — has been
committing high-profile thefts throughout Europe, aided by a most unlikely
sidekick: Dom’s former main squeeze, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez).
But wait, I hear you cry: Didn’t
Letty die two films back?
Well, yes, but this series has a
comic book habit of reviving characters deemed too popular to abandon. Sung
Kang’s Han already enjoyed such a revival; he perished in the third installment
(Tokyo Drift) but has reappeared in each of the subsequent films, a seeming
impossibility explained by the fact that 4, 5 and this new film take place
before the events in Tokyo Drift.
And so, similarly, we may have
thought Letty got killed in 4, but it ain’t necessarily so ... as folks who
watched the post-credits tag scene at the very end of 5 already knew, based
on a photograph handed to Hobbs.
Anyway...
The so-called plot here is
incidental and perfunctory: Shaw needs to steal a whatzis — in order to combine
it with other whatzises (whatzi?) he stole earlier, before this movie started —
so that he can build a vile thingamajig capable of knocking out the electrical
and computer grids of an entire country, which obviously would be a valuable
item to have, were a neighboring hostile government planning to invade.
Because Shaw has accomplished his
earlier heists with a team of skilled drivers, Hobbs decides to fight
turbo-charged fire with more of the same, and hence our team is reassembled
once again.
One must take attempts at
“serious dialogue” with a grain of salt, as when Mia “understands” that Brian
must join the gang, despite his earlier promise to settle down and be a
sedentary doting father. Morgan fills such moments with howler lines such as
“This is what we do,” and of course that’s all the explanation we get.
Some women are apt to scoff,
however, when Elena generously insists that Dom has to find and confront Letty:
certainly the most unselfish lover I've ever encountered in fiction. But, then,
we don’t watch these films for credible relationship dynamics; we really just
want sight gags, droll one-liners and wry double-takes.
But only in between action shots
starring a Who’s Who of new and old American and European muscle cars: a 1969
Dodge Daytona (Dom) a 1971 Mark 1 Ford Escort (Brian), a 1970 Jensen
Interceptor (Letty), a 2002 Enzo Ferrari (Tej) ... not to mention a few
motorcycles — a Harley (Han) and a Ducati Monster (Gisele) — not to mention a
lethal “flip car” and even a 2012 Aston Martin DB9 (Shaw, who apparently stole
it from James Bond).
The highest-profile human
newcomer is mixed martial arts fighter-turned-actress Gina Carano, who turns up
as Riley, Hobbs’ second-in-command. Carano might be remembered from her
starring turn in director Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 spy thriller, Haywire, but
I must note that, two years further along, the term “actress” remains generous.
Carano gets her lines out, but she hasn’t a shred of the easy, jocular presence
displayed so effortlessly by everybody else.
And that’s what it comes down to.
Even the best-choreographed car chases would pale, if we weren’t enjoying the
characters. Bridges and Gibson are a hoot as Tej and Roman, and I still chuckle
at the veiled-brow, don’t-mess-with-me intensity that Diesel gives even an
innocuous line, such as “Pass the salt.”
Johnson continues his equally
engaging, action-hero ascent, and his scenes with Diesel — Dom and Hobbs have a
prickly relationship, at best — are quite droll. Rodriguez remains the baddest
girl on the planet, with a sneer that could freeze blood at 50 yards, and Gadot
is a spunky, perky yin to the yang of Kang’s more serious Han.
Walker has the white bread
contingent covered, while poor Brewster continues to play the token gal in
distress ... but only sometimes. Push come to shove, Mia gets to drive just as
aggressively as Letty and all the boys.
At 130 minutes, Fast &
Furious 6 is one car chase too long; the third act, in particular, flirts with
overkill. And speaking of that, I didn’t appreciate the casual collateral
damage inflicted on scores innocent civilians who get crushed — inside their
cars — during the tank sequence. That’s needlessly, unpleasantly callous for
this sort of lighthearted fare, and certainly not funny, although Lin obviously
stages the scene as if expecting laughs.
All the Fast & Furious flicks probably qualify as guilty pleasures, at best, but I can’t ignore the
formula that keeps me coming back for more ... particularly now that Morgan’s
post-credit bit in this film seems to have “caught up” with Tokyo Drift, therefore granting Dom & Co. the opportunity, in next summer’s 7, to seek
some anger-fueled vengeance.
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