Review of Fast & Furious 6 (2013) by Severedwing — 23 May 2013

I was a bit skeptical when Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was brought back to life, but it does seem the writers managed to at least make a plausible effort to explain her appearance as well as her lack of familiarity with her former comrades. I did not like how it essentially threw cold water on the romance they so keenly plotted out in the previous movie, but I guess that is what happens when you don't have consistency in writing staff.

Overall the movie is about what I expected from a new Fast and Furious, lots of action, light on plot, and light on character development. The cast all reprise their roles as the tough guy, the smart guy, the savvy guy, etc. and the two who contributed the least were just dropped off the roster. I harken the last movie (Fast 5) to something like Ocean's 13 meets the Italian Job. This movie is something more like Die Hard 5 meets Tomorrow Never Dies.

The plot is hardly plausible and ludicrously flimsy at best. Even my 12 year old nephew was throwing wrenches into the supposed master criminal plan that "Dom's Crew" must thwart and the alleged pay-off for said services.

For its flimsy plot, sub standard character development, and over the top action it gets the lower rating. However it does what it tries to do well enough to make it a worthwhile film. I regret seeing it in a theater though as it is definitely not a blockbuster and more of a Saturday night rental. The car sequences are too few and far between as well as being somewhat ludicrous (a flip car? really? wouldn't a really hardcore driver be able to just AVOID the cars and not need to turn them into projectiles to evade pursuit, you know like they did in the first movie?). There is plenty of fisticuffs with Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson flexing his bulging muscles he acquired from "Pain & Gain" and of course Vin Diesel always throwing down the headbutt. It has action and it is good action, it just suffers because of the plot and story don't make any of the action make sense and the lack of character development makes all the other characters seem like filler, even Letty who they worked so hard to write into the story.

All in all I can't say its a bad movie, but I will say I don't like it as much as the previous movie or the First movie. The franchise has come a long way, but it seems to have lost it's way and that may be mainly due to the fact that the continuity has to be extended. When they began they were poor thugs looking to make bank, but now they are essentially superstar underground criminals who have to keep one-upping their own antics. I look forward to a possible reboot or at least some more street racing from this franchise in the future.