Wuv…true wuv…

Some sequels of cool originals just shouldn’t be made.  The Boondock Saints II, The Hangover II (and now III), G.I. Joe: Retaliation.  The Fast and Furious franchise somehow doesn’t fit that bill, ridiculous as it is.  Director Justin Lin just gets bigger with every sequel – at least, after the terrible Tokyo Drift storyline – and people continue to line up to gleefully watch this group of sexy people do crazy, impossible things.

Fast and Furious 6 is, by leaps and bounds, much faster and more furious (furiouser?) than any of the previous films.  Lin doesn’t give us much time to analyze what we just saw before jumping into another action scene and I loved every minute of its ridiculousness.  Anyone remember the beginning of this series?  Just a ragtag bunch of fairly poor drag racers – and an undercover cop – robbing people.  At this point, they not only have retired overseas with millions of dollars each, courtesy of the safe they stole in the last film, but they have continued to gain incredible knowledge to handle massive weaponry and take down whole mother loving AIRPLANES, because reality is for losers, folks.

Also: Physics.

We found out at the end of the last film that Letty (the dirty sexy Michelle Rodriguez – Lost, Battle Los Angeles) is still alive and out there somewhere, apparently working with English terrorist Shaw (Luke Evans – The Immortals, Clash of the Titans) to obtain some kind of computer chip that will somehow threaten millions – sorry to be vague, I’m just not actually sure they fully explain that in the film.  But it doesn’t matter at all, because we all just go to these films to see crazy car chases and big explosions and hot women driving cars.  Anyway, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (The Rundown, a million WWE specials) reprises his role as CIA agent Luke Hobbs and is charged with stopping this dastardly and handsome villain.  He heads out and convinces our favorite gang to come back together in London to take Shaw down.  If they do, they’ll be pardoned and, I assume, can return to the United States – a place they’re currently banned from, to avoid extradition.

The rest of the film is just one action sequence after another, each one bigger than the last.  Brian O’Connor’s (Paul Walker – Varsity Blues, The Skulls) car flips over 5876 times?  No problem.  Letty and Dom (Vin Diesel – The Chronicles of Riddick, The Pacifier) drag racing through the incredibly crowded streets of London?  Meh.  Using a few cars and cables to bring down an airplane the size of a small country?  All in a day’s work.  Oh, and there’s a dude on the bad guy’s team who is BIGGER than The Rock.  I didn’t even realize that was possible.   I’m fairly sure they’re just going to go bigger and bigger until we’re just watching Harry Potter giants battle each other.

And it’s all So.  Flipping.  Awesome.  Fast and Furious 6 is so epic and absurd and funny, and it seems that the director and writer truly embrace all of that; they kind of laugh at themselves and that’s what makes it great.  They know it’s impossibly stupid and they love it.  We love it, too.  And if the epilogue doesn’t have you begging to see the next one – slated for release July 2014 – then I’ll defriend you on Facebook.

“The Fast and the Furious is in its name. The new one that has recently come to theaters has to be one of the most action packed thrillers I’ve seen this year. I am really looking forward to watching the whole saga and collecting each detail. They really took a leap with a much more modern outlook – the movies brought me to think of the Bourne movies.  Great movies, don’t get me wrong, but if you like raw power and America you’ll love this movie.” -Kyle Coffman

So…’Murica!

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Fast and Furious 6 3.5 out of 5 insanely unrealistic car chases.

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