Movie Reviews
The Fast & Furious franchise is weird… how many other movies do you know where main characters disappear only to reappear in the next movie? Well, one could argue that the real main characters aren’t the actors but the cars. Or one could say that it doesn’t matter because it’s not like any of the characters have developed over the course of six movies. So what is this bunch of street-racing LA punks up to this time?
When last we saw Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul ‘I only have one facial expression’ Walker) and their crew, they were in Rio de Janeiro annoying the shit out of federal agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and getting away with a whole lot of money.
Dom and Brian now reside in the Spanish Canary Islands with – respectively - Elena (Elsa Pataky) and Mia (Jordana Brewster). Brian and Mia just had a baby. How domestic, right? Meanwhile Roman (Tyrese Gibson) is hooking up with models left and right. Tej (Ludacris) is living it up in Costa Rica and Han (Sung Kang) and Gisele (Gal Gadot) have settled down as well… in their own special way.
This all changes when Hobbs gets them together again to fight a baddie named Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Shaw is trying to steal something that he needs in order to put together a device named Nightshade, which will have dire consequences for the rest of the world if he succeeds. Not that Dom & co care about that… they want Letty, who is back from the dead and running with Shaw’s crew. Apparently amnesia also suppresses morals. But hey, she’s family, right? It’s all kinda hazy there but who needs a decent plot when you’ve got scantily clad ladies and cars that go vroooooommmmmmmm?
Fourth time director Justin Lin knows what the fans of the series want and so that’s exactly what they get. Sure, the dialogues are terrible and the way Johnson recites his lines, make Diesel’s one-liners sound like pure Shakespeare. But who cares when you’ve got close-ups of hands handling shift sticks? And even though some of the stunts are completely over-the-top, ridiculous and physics-defying, they do look spectacular. Especially the scene on a Spanish highway where the baddies pull out the heavy artillery looks amazing.
In short, it’s ride or die time once again for Dom’s crew and if you manage to shut down your brain for two hours, it’s one helluva fun ride. And if you stick around long enough for the credits, you’ll get to see one more scene that will already let your meters go in the red in anticipation of chapter seven!
