Fast & Furious Breaks the Rule

Three times’ a charm.  That’s always been my rule of thumb when it comes to books or movies.  I like the idea of not spoiling a good and it’s been my experience that series that go beyond the magic number of three enter bad news bears territory.  So as the Memorial weekend approached and plans were being made, not catching the 6th installment of Fast & Furious seemed like a no brainer.  Six is way past my cut-off.

Unfortunately, the reviews for Hangover III were consistently bad.   Now you definitely have to take critic reviews with a grain of salt, but so far I haven’t seen one positive thing about it.   Honestly even the trailer was luke warm. So that said, the boyfriend and I went with my plan B, his first choice – Fast & Furious 6.

I went in thinking the only good thing about this movie was going to be gazing at the face of Paul Walker – he need not even talk – but the movie was surprisingly good.

In fact I hear it’s slatted to be no.1 in the box office bringing in about $122 million in domestic sales.  Double that when we talk international dollars.  Perhaps it helps that the “fam” is spread out. Dom (Vin Disel) and Brian (Paul Walker) live within racing distance in the Canary Islands.  Roman (Tyrese Gibson) is an international jet-setter. Tech geek Tej (rapper Ludacris) doubles as a retired Robin Hood in Costa Rica.  And Han (Sung Kang) and Gisele (Gal Gadot) were enjoying Hong Kong.  Must be nice…huh?

Spoiler alert!

This installment put Special Agent Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and Dom on the same team. If we all remember (and for those that didn’t see the past movies, it was clear to pick up in context clues), Hobbs was a huge opponent of ex-con Dom. But conveniently saving Hobbs from a bullet earned Dom and Brian a swift getaway, with the not-so-subtle warning that he would always be watching.

Well, in this movie Hobbs came to make good on that promise.

Enter plot.

The movie revolves around the return and rescue of Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom’s long-ago love killed in the fourth film. In fact she wasn’t dead.  She lived through her injuries with the exception of a lost memory and was nursed back to health with the support of a new set of criminals – ones with malice intent.  The ring-leader, Shaw (Luke Evans), is on the verge of building some sort of technological warfare. Hobbs needs Dom’s help to stop him.

In an instant, Dom and his crew were in London staking out Shaw. Of course they’re ready to take him down, but all Dom really wants is to see Letty again. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have any idea who he is.  This is where the big budgets come into play to keep it all entertaining.
If I had to point out the downsides of the film, acting and believability would begin and end the list.  The Rock, Michelle Rdriguez and Tyrese did particularly good jobs bringing life to their characters.  Unfortunately, the rest all had moments of struggle.  Some a little more than others (Ludacris…. #IJS).  Also a little bothersome was just the believability of some of the action scenes.  Granted we all know this is a movie, but unless these people are super-human some of the stunts garnered a little bit of a side-eye.  They were excessively distracting to me at times.  But, the plot was strong enough to support it.

Long story short, this was a good film. Go check it out.