Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Fast 6, yup I went to see it



A small bit of  housekeeping……I love me some action movies. Good old fashioned explosions, chases, punches, guns, and all that. I also love a caper/heist movie. Now there are some great mixes of these: The Bank Job, The Italian Job, Ronin, The Heist, The Transporter, Heat, Entrapment, Inside Man, Point Break, Ocean’s Eleven ………….and Fast Five. We have over the top laws of physics breaking action , dames, cars, guns, some comedy, a descent villain, shooting and explosions all in various mixtures. Some have more of these and some have less, but they all have some mix of these.  

I have never gone to see a Fast and Furious movie in the theater. However, I have did see the original a long time ago on the cable. Then I watched it again a few years ago. Then I found myself watch the second, third, then wanting to see the fourth and actually really loving the fifth. I still had never actually gone to the cinema to view them though. I took my lady friend to see the 6th installment in the theater this past weekend and it was just  as much fun as the last film!




The plot picks up after the shenanigans of the last film. Everyone is off living their lives to the fullest. Then we get a new bad guy showing up to ruin everything. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson returns to recruit Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and the rest of the gang. The Rock uses the reappearance of his once dead girlfriend as leverage to do one last job. The Vin Diesel gang reunites in hopes of clearing their names, getting Michelle Rodriguez back in the fold and to stop this new bad guy. A British villain who has military mobile vehicle training and is super tactical and has a team that are basically doppelgangers of our heroes. Once all this is spelled out then the action begins and doesn’t really slow down until the credits roll.

Now most people will poo-poo this film and they have the right. Hell, I shouldn’t like any of these movies. However, I have embraced and love them. This is action for action sake. The plot is there to get us to the next action sequence, which is bigger than the last. The sheer testosterone on screen is insane! It is just as crazy as the driving and fighting. These films are made for entertainment and the 6th installment is even more entertaining than the 5th. How? Why?

The wanton destruction, eye candy, face punching, explosions, and crazy chase scenes are how. There is a sequence with a tank, a highway and lots of motor vehicles. The kid in me loved to see this tank pancaking cars all the way down the highway. The sheer car destruction was reminiscent of the end of the Blues Brothers, but only crazier. Seeing a car race through Piccadilly Circus and chases through the streets of London was just as cool. I loved it! Hell there is a big tie-in to the fourth film to shore up some loose ends. They didn’t have to do any of that, but it was cool they wrote that into the film. The end sequence which involves a military cargo plane, cars, jeeps, gun play and a WWE style tag-team fist fight was just as crazy and fun! Then there is the fact that at the heart of this all it is still a modified heist movie, which I am a fan.

After the smoke clears and the end is sight we get a treat of how the franchise is getting wrapped together. The third movie was about Tokyo and drift racing. It made no sense and was made for gods know what reason. However, it now has a point as it has be written into the current Fast movie story arc. The next film is set up to take place after the events of the Tokyo Drift film and they seem to have upped the ante again. See the villain has a brother and this brother is looking to settle a score. The film ends with Jason Statham ending the life of part of Vin Diesel’s crew. If having the Rock and Riddick in a film together wasn’t enough. Next we will get Riddick vs. my second man crush and a guy with a laundry list of action movies. Looks like part 7 will be eye candy for my lady ( a BIG Vin Diesel fan) and myself.

Love it or hate it the Fast franchise is continuing and I’ll be there for as long as they can keep this kind of stuff going!

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