Fast and Furious 6

  • 2013-06-12
  • By Laurence Boyce

Director: Justin Lin

You might not know this, but the most abundant thing in the universe, apart from hydrogen, are Fast and Furious movies. Long after the Sun has burnt itself it out and the Earth a distant memory, the universe will be left with images of Vin Diesel being out-acted by a bunch of shiny cars. Yes, there’re a lot of Fast and Furious movies, even though it’s increasingly difficult to tell the difference between them all.

After the events of the previous film – in which some people did bad things and there were lots of explosions – Dom (Vin Diesel) and his crew live a quiet life of retirement. But when government agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) finds them, their lives are turned upside down. Hobbs is searching for the criminal Shaw and needs their help. With Dom’s old flame Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) now with Shaw, and the prospects of amnesty, the crew get back together to stop Shaw and discover why Letty is now on the side of the bad guys. They all proceed to sit down and talk about their problems in a moving and talkative drama. OK, not really: they go on to have lots of car chases, fights, and lots of things blow up.

To be fair to director Justin Lin, he knows exactly what he wants to deliver with the franchise and does so with aplomb and without pretence. This is dumb fun. But it’s pretty well done dumb fun (though, at 130 minutes, it will test all but the most hardy explosion/cars fan). Everyone involved knows that acting is not really required and let themselves become props within an increasingly elaborate series of set pieces, though the film does try and give a bit of emotion with the Dom/Letty sub-plot. But who needs emotion when we have nice shiny cars!

Unsurprisingly, this has no surprises but, as an end credit sequence suggests, this franchise will run and run and we can all keep watching until the end of time.

 
 

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