This doesn’t happen.
I mean, it never, EVER happens.
When was the last time the sixth movie in a franchise was far and away the best one?
You’ve got to understand: I’ve been in this since the beginning. Somehow, against all logic and reason, I took it upon myself to go see a movie where “music” by Limp Bizkit figured prominently in the trailer:
(And yes, that really IS Ja Rule in the trailer. If you are wondering: “Who is Ja Rule?”, the correct answer is “Don’t worry about it”…)
Did I enjoy The Fast And The Furious? Sure, when it was Point Break and there was surfing involved. But that didn’t stop me from following up two years later with the indescribably wonderful title of 2 Fast 2 Furious. If looked at as a proper action movie, 2 Fast 2 Furious is sorely lacking. But as a comedy, that shit is more hilarious than an entire season of 2 Broke 2 Girls. Take that as you will…
Which brings us to the unfairly maligned third film, Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, which was up until this most recent installment was my favorite, and which I will defend till my dying day. Why? Because Hulk Mobile:
I don’t care how valid your complaints about it might be, any movie with ‘Hulk Car’ will never get anything less than four stars from yours truly.
And so, with the release of Furious 6, we realize that the fourth, fifth, and sixth films are their own mini-trilogy, an epic story of family, redemption, and the complete breakdown of the laws of physics. And against all odds, director Justin Lin has managed to fashion the rare action movie that gives people exactly what they’re expecting. It’s preposterous, and a preposterous amount of fun.
If we’re going to go through the motions of pretending the plot matters, let us get this over with in as efficient a manner as the movie itself: The Rock reprises his role from the fifth installment as Luke Hobbs, the Tommy Lee Jones to Vin Diesel’s roided out Harrison Ford (or Dominic Torreto, as they call him due to copyright laws). Hobbs recruits Dom and his crew to help him capture Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), a bad news ex-military racecar driver (or whatever). Shaw is doing bad things that are damn near irrelevant to the plot. He’s a villain, that’s all that really matters… well that, and one of his henchman just happens to be Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), who was killed in the fourth movie.
Properly incentivized, Vin gets the band back together for two hours of vehicular warfare, which is like regular warfare, but with more involved turning radii.
One of the most remarkable things about this movie is that, in this modern era of bloat and convoluted franchise mythologies, Furious 6 is able to establish its backstory, stakes, and its many, many characters with fleet-footed efficiency. The only other movie I can think of that’s been so dense in its machinations and setup and so good at making it accessible to the layperson is The Avengers.
And yes, dear reader, I’m aware I just compared a Vin Diesel movie to The Avengers. I’m just as surprised as you are. This is not an accomplishment to be sneezed at. To explain why, exactly, it might be useful to backtrack through the previous two films…
Fast and Furious, the fourth film in the series, was little more than a reunion party. After the middling success of the third film, it was more or less a last gasp by the studio at relevance, playing on the grim specter of instant nostalgia. Vin Diesel, whose fortunes had fallen since he abandoned the series to start a series of stillborn franchises, was brought back in and reunited with Paul Walker, whose fortunes had never exactly risen in the first place. Their meathead chemistry was one of the foremost virtues of the original film, and it was a studio Hail Mary that they could replicate the magic.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the movie was a massive hit. I don’t know that I can explain this, except that maybe we as a nation were hard pressed for a genuine action hero and Vin Diesel was as good as we thought we were going to get without promoting Scott Adkins to the A-List (which we’re not doing why exactly?)
In any case, the franchise was revitalized enough to warrant a sequel in the studios eyes, and here is where things get interesting. While they could have coasted on the Walker-Diesel duo and focused in on that, the screenwriters and Justin Lin made a bold move: to bring in elements from the far less popular second and third movies and turn a buddy franchise into an out and out ensemble. And then, as the icing on the cake, they brought in The Rock, the once and future last action hero.
And now, if you will indulge me, an aside pertaining to The Rock: It is now, and forever will be, a grave injustice that The Rundown was not an enormous hit that propelled Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to the proverbial A-List, but I take comfort in the fact that this oversight by the masses led to The Rock (who has always had the chops and screen presence to be a leading man) becoming one of the best ensemble players in Hollywood. While he has used his incredible charisma to prop up lesser projects as a lead, he has mostly made a fine career for himself being the best part of many, many subpar films. And now, in Furious 6, he finally has another vehicle that is worthy of his talents.
The vehicle pun was unintentional. I just want you all to know that…
Among its many virtues, the movie does an impressive job of performing actor rehab on pretty much its entire cast, many of whom have been ill-used of late. The most obvious would be Michelle Rodriguez, who has spent the past few years as a one-dimensional pitbull of aggression and attitude. While her big reveal is ludicrous in the extreme, she does an amazing job of letting her confusion and torn loyalties play out on her face, as opposed to burdening her with cheesy exposition. Because, really, if you say this stuff out loud, you run the risk of sounding like a total idiot.
Paul Walker, never the most dynamic performer out there, has developed a newfound maturity with age and seems worlds away from the goofy frat boy he started the series out as. Though, to be fair, it might just be that he shaved his head and stopped calling everybody ‘bro’ all the time… Tyrese gets to be goofy, which is (objectively speaking), the best kind of Tyrese. His ‘Mutt and Jeff’ chemistry with Ludacris provides many of the film’s big laughs (The film’s extended middle finger to the laws of physics provide the rest.)
Sung Kang as Han, the second most interesting part of Tokyo Drift, is rewarded for his reliable team player attitude by getting an actual character arc that pays off the work he’s been doing for four films now. His romance with the improbably attractive Gal Godot, while it unfolds in the only way it could, plays way better than you’d probably expect for what basically amounts to a few loaded lines of background dialogue.
And Jordana Brewster is also in some scenes, which is fine.
Look, I can talk about the acting, the precision with which the story unfolds, the fact that even with such a massive cast, everybody gets something to do, the eye candy… I can discuss all of these things.
But no one cares about that.
All people want to know is, ‘How is the action?’
Brother, let me tell you: it is spectacular.
Justin Lin knows how to stage clear and coherent action, which used to be something you didn’t have to point out a director being able to do. At all times, I knew who was doing what to whom, where they were, and why.
Better yet, there was a sense of scale and progression to the action. Most action movies these days bludgeon you into submission in the first act, and maintain that level for the rest of the film, to stultifying results. This movie starts big, and gets bigger in logical increments, almost as if someone in Hollywood actually understands the essential principles of the three act structure. And not once does it even pretend to be anywhere in the realm of actual possibility. It commits to cartoonish mayhem with a glee that’s as endearing as it is exhilarating.
Seriously, as an action movie fan, you’re very lucky if you get one movie a year where an action beat grabs you by the proverbial lapels and practically begs you not to burst into applause.
This movie has at least five.
And it’s not just car stunts. There are several fights in the movie, which rank among the best in any recent American film. Gina Carano (American Gladiators, Haywire, some intimate domination fantasies I probably shouldn’t bring up) and Joe Taslim (Sgt. Jaka in The Raid) have roles as The Rock’s new partner and a henchman of Shaw, respectively. They don’t exactly get a lot to do acting-wise, but their physical performances are some of the highlights of the film.
And so, we have our first pleasant surprise of the summer. If you told me I would enjoy a Vin Diesel movie about cars more than Iron Man 3, I would assume that you were Vin Diesel in disguise, talking a big game. But you’d be right, and if you were Vin Diesel, that’d be weird, because why would you waste your time trying to convince little old me?
I’m not going to speculate on the ins and outs of my hypothetical relationship with Vin Diesel, because neither of one of us has time for that, what with my busy schedule of movie reviewing and him living his life a quarter mile at a time, but let me leave you with this: I can’t imagine an action fan not coming away satisfied, unless they’re completely devoid of joy.
Although I will allow for the possibility that they’re just being contrary dicks…
