Furious 6 Review
Crash bang Wallop! That’s what you can expect from the sixth in the Fast and the Furious series. Ok, so we got things ramped up in the previous installment, but Six pretty much opens the gates and lets it all flood out with nary an air of subtlety.
Cars and launched and flipped (So is a tank), planes crash, people take flight, fists are thrown, kicks are sprung and the franchise as a whole finds new meaning in big and dumb fun.
Dominic (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) are back with the rest of the gang when Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) calls in a favour that leads them face to face against a villain, the cold and efficient Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), with a similar set of car related skills as the rest of them. Amongst his own crew is the long thought dead Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) which makes this all the more personal for Dominic. Cue a lot of globetrotting and high end action.
Furious Six is every bit the sibling of Fast Five. The franchise is reached a heyday that no-one predicted until 2009’s Fast and Furious reteamed the leading men from the original movie. Six has some of the most impressive road work (Be it on the streets of London, the highways of Spain or in the runway finale) you will see in the series yet, and all ramped up to 11. At this rate they may well reach that number of movies.
What is surprising is how well the film plays with its own mythology. Behind the scenes features show you how well they have actually thought about underlying themes in the series. Ok some are more plausible that others (Family has always been a strong and present theme – whereas bringing characters back from the dead with Amnesia stinks a little bit of day time soap). But the series may be weak in a sense of bringing back characters it had the nerve to kill off, but it is also not afraid to let others go.
The real joy though is just how enjoyable all the onscreen “Bromance” is. Much of it will have you howling with laughter, but never for an instant do you hold it against the film makers or the actors. Macho posturing and cheesy one liners are a large part of what makes this work so well (If only they wound a way to make that tone work in The Expendables franchise).
It is also not afraid to set up the next installment which fans can expect next year (Yes they are making the next one that fast! So keep fingers crossed and prayers frequent that they are not rushing too much for this one).
The extras package:
Now don’t let the back of the box freak you out. First of all it starts there is over 50 mins of extras. For once this is them underselling what they have. Further inspection of the box lets you know there is almost 1hr 18 mins of extras. Largely, this is all made up of smaller featurettes – and for the most part they are all focused and show plenty of behind the scenes footage. The cast, cars and stunts get a good look in, as well as locations. But there is also a director’s commentary which is not mention on the box. So anyone fearing that Universal had dropped the ball on this disc release can rest at ease.
Steven Hurst