This is an actual conversation that my
responsible Super-Ego had with my immature ID after watching
'Furious 6'.
Super Ego: Damn… That was
terrible.
ID: If by terrible you mean Terribly Awesome, you are so
right!
Super Ego: You're joking right? At no point did this
movie ever make any sense.
ID: Which means, circularly speaking, it made perfect sense!
Super Ego: Plus the best actor in the movie, by far, is
an ex-professional wrestler!
ID: Who, after watching this,
just might be the best actor… ever.
As you can see, arguing my friend ID is pointless, just like
having some kind of logical discussion on the sixth Fast and
Furious 'Furious 6' is an exercise in utter futility.
But we have a page to fill with words, so that's what we're
gonna do.
After 'Fast Five' we were pretty sure there was nowhere else
to go with this franchise, but a closing credit scene from
that movie alerted us that the lovely Letty (Michelle
Rodriguez) was still alive somewhere. So while Dominic
(Vin Diesel) is loving life in some tropical location with his
new lady love Elena (Elsa Pataky), when Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson)
shows up with news that Letty is alive and that he needs his
crew to take down international bad dude Mr. Shaw (Luke
Evans), Elena gives him her blessing to find his old
girlfriend and get the family back together. Brian (Paul
Walker) and Mia (Jordanna Brewster) have just had a baby boy,
and Dominic didn't want him to go, but family stays together,
and Brian and Dominic together are better than the two of them
on their own. That's what Mia said.
So we round up the crew, Roman (Tyrese), Tej
(Ludacris), Han (Sun Kang) and his lady Giselle (Gal Gadot)
and head off to London along with Hobbs and his new right hand
lady, Agent Riley (Gina Carano), to do some high tech
surveillance, drive real fast, and blow some stuff up real
good. And of course see what's up with Letty. Mind
you, the first time Dominic confronted Letty, after
spectacular action sequence 2b, she shot his ass, but that
only made Dom love her that much more. But we must ask,
what's wrong with Letty. We also gotta ask why Dom is
performing self-surgery in removing the bullet and stitching
himself up when there are doctors available that do just that
kind of that thing. And they're working for the cops so
no worries about silly questions being asked. Like the
one I just asked. My apologies and let's move on.
Eventually we find out what happened to Letty and why she's
not all dead and stuff, we learn that this Shaw character is a
super duper criminal up to doing some super duper evil stuff,
but most importantly we learn that Dominic Torreto can
fly. Seriously. The man can freaking fly!
So if my man Super-Ego were in control he'd continue on his
diatribe about 'Furious 6' and mention that almost twenty
years into his acting career, Paul Walker still hasn't learned
how to emote even a little bit, he'd mention that during the
production process there wasn't one person who stood up and
said 'hey, that can't really happen', he would also mention
that the movie lacked any kind of cleverness or intelligence
or wit, and by wit we mean something involving brain function,
not comedy as Tyrese provided us with plenty of comedy. Thus
Super Ego would come to the conclusion that this was basically
130 minutes of bad acting, Diesel and Johnson in shirts that
don't fit, and explosions. That's what he would tell
you.
ID, on the other hand, would counter and would remind
Super-Ego that he has watched all six of these movies and
every last one of them he's begrudgingly given a positive
review, because these Fast and Furious movies, almost more
than any series ever, stay true to what they are. And he
will remind Super-Ego that when Furious 7 through 14 come out,
which we assume will conclude with a 72 year old Vin Diesel in
a tight wife-beater flying through the air out of his nitro
enhanced wheelchair saving his grandchildren, the two of them
will be together watching, one loving this complete nonsense
with no reservations and the other one hating himself for
loving this complete nonsense.
Both of those entities, however, do enjoy how director Justin
Lin and whomever is getting the credit for 'writing' this
movie ties all six of these movies together, note that the
opening credits had a Fast 1-5 quick primer to save anyone who
doesn't want to from watching all five movies, the action is
totally insane, and Dominic did throw the option out for Elena
to stick around, even though he did locate his one true
love. And if she would've said yes… oh my… the ID and
Super-Ego both have to agree that would've been terrible… as
in terribly awesome! And of course, there was the flying
headbutt. You can't beat that with a stick.
Criticizing the Fast and the Furious franchise at this point
is almost silly. These movies have an agenda, this being
to cram as much muscle bound testosterone and feminine hotness
and unrealistic action that be squeezed into a couple of
hours, and that agenda… every single time… has been
achieved.
