Fast & Furious 6

All you need to know is that the first 5 minutes of the movie features a car race, and The Rock kicks some guy’s booty. That’s fast. That’s furious.

Of course, director Jason Lin and writer Chris Morgan did come up with something resembling a plot, but that is just a flimsy excuse to get the gang back together and put them in some cool cars. Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne “He Will Always Be The Rock” Johnson) is hot on the trail of a former military special ops dude, Shaw (Luke Evans), who is up to no good. I could explain it to you, but it’s so convoluted, I am afraid your brain and mine would explode trying to comprehend it.

To put it in the simple terms we both appreciate, Shaw’s gang uses some fast cars and wild tactics to steal the components they need for some sort of massive tool that screws up military communications, and Hobbs knows the only people who can drive with these guys are the guys who got away from him before.

Hobbs finds Dom (Vin Diesel) and convinces the bald tough guy he can provide something Dom and the gang want, if they capture Shaw. As we learned in Fast 5, Dom’s old flame, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), is alive, after she allegedly died in Fast & Furious AKA Fast & Furious Part 4! So, Dom is convinced by Hobbs finding Shaw will lead him back to the love of his life.

Will Dom, Brian (Paul Walker) and the rest of the crew be able to stop Shaw?

How does Letty play into all of this?

You have to admit, making 6 of these movies is a massive feat and accomplishment. The Fast and The Furious never should have survived the shame of The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, but that disaster cleansed the palate and led to a solid trio of later sequels that makes me actually want to see installment #7 (which is teased with one of the greatest scenes you will witness during the closing credits of a movie).

Fast & Furious 6 is not a great movie, but it is so crazy, ridiculous and outrageous, you can’t help but like it at some base, guilty level. When Lin tries to play by the normal movie rules and develop motivations for our villain or twists and turns in the plot to throw our heroes on their heels, it’s snooze time.

Shaw turns into some all powerful James Bond-type supervillain with more toys and gadgets than Goldfinger ever had access to, which is so off-the-charts unbelievable and unexplained, it reduces his stature to the audience, instead of enhancing it. If anything can happen out of thin air just because it is convenient to the plot, it all loses impact.

Dom and every one of the good guys spews all sorts of prattling, overly sentimental dialogue about the importance of family with the plaintive emotional strains of a musical score kicking in to cue you as to when you are supposed to cry, which takes away from the emotional importance of it.

And, we get all sorts of references to the first 5 movies, which must make fans happy, but doesn’t add much more to the movie.

Yet, in the end, the only thing that matters in Fast & Furious 6 is that the gang takes on a tank!

A tank!!!!!

You can’t deny how cool all the chase scenes are.

You can’t deny the action has you on the edge of your seat and cheering on the good guys when they engage in fisticuffs with the evil dudes or they are making logic and physics defying rescues.

You can’t deny that the last big action scene, even though it is completely superfluous and extend the movie by 20 minutes or so that isn’t needed, is kind of shockingly intense.

Fast & Furious 6 just delivers what you want, even if you try to deny it.

Fast & Furious 6 is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action and mayhem throughout, some sexuality and language.