Fast & Furious 6 Review

The resurgence of the Fast & Furious series since 2009 to the present has become a successful definition of a true summer blockbuster. To be truthful I must admit that I have only seen bits and pieces of 2001’s & ’09’s Furious movies, never have I seen ’03’s “2 Fast 2 Furious,” nor ’06’s “Tokyo Drift,” the latter two because they got so far from the cast that make these films so fascinating. Having only seen “Fast Five” before “6,” and all the trailers leading up to the latest, I had a correct assumption of what it would be, which is essentially a torch bearer, building atop the formula of all the past entries to give fans more of what they want to see. It may not exactly be original, but it is a lot of fun to watch.

Since the cliffhanger of “Fast Five,” which has become a signature for the series, it’s been clear that fan favorite Michelle Rodriguez would return after her apparent death in the fourth film. Alongside the faces of the series Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Jordana Brewster, and other series mainstays Tyrese Gibson, Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Sung Kang, and Gal Gadot, all of whom give solid, quip-filled performances, the story of the movie becomes about bringing the family of characters back together. Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) offers the international criminals that chance, plus complete pardons. The exchange is to help him catch the film’s villain, Shaw (Luke Evans), a mastermind leader of a mercenary group, whose tracks have shown them racing across 12 countries, committing various heists.

The latest movies include very few actual races, though the writers always manage to sneak in at least one, however, there are a ton of visually pleasing chases to make up for it. Still on the action side, a handful of hand-to-hand fights carry their own weight of entertainment, especially my personal favorite that pit Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Han (Sung Kang) against Jah (Johanes Taslim), one of the mercenaries, leading to a must-see humorous end. Admittedly, though, all other scenes are trumped by the plane scene the trailers have so famously highlighted.

In the end, I think one of the best things about the film is the way the writers have filled in some past plot holes that had previously marred the story in a way. I found “Fast & Furious 6” to be very enjoyable, and therefore recommend it.