"Slow & Laborious"

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2013)

Expectations were high after the inexplicably positive reaction to Fast Five. That film, was completely over the top and thoroughly cool. It seemed as though the Fast franchise was on the precipice of becoming the perfect example of straight-up popcorn cinema; unabashed, silly, and awesome. The ads for Furious 6 gave the impression we were gonna be taken to yet another level this time, (did they frickin' crash a plane with a harpoon!!?) Things were about to get even more insaner-er, i mean we talking' VE-hicular warfare. What's left to say?
Unfortunately, Fast 6 is not even awesome for what it is. Yes we get a couple pretty sweet moments here and again; the highway-tank battle being the prime example. But who would've thought the sludge weighing a movie like this down would be too...much....talking. I'm serious, there's about 35 minutes of setup which covers precisely the same material the trailer compressed into about 25 seconds. This is not good for a movie like this. But this wouldn't even be much of a problem if all those interaction/"character development" scenes were remotely interesting...or good. They are not.
The first half is snore inducing, and the characters are not only unlikable, but shallow...no, I mean like even for this kind of film. A good example of this is the movie introduces another hotshot, car-driving crew, and one of the characters has to outright spell out how they are the evil dopplegangers of our favorite nice, team of criminals. The other crew of characters, even for the one-dimensional stereotypes they are, are somehow flat. There's literally not one memorable thing about any one of them.
Another issue the movie struggles with is focus. We've got Toretto with his whole "get Letty back" plot line, we've got the Rock doing his thing, and then there's this whole subplot with Paul Walker's cop past coming back for him in prison as he's ambushed by some dudes he put away, all of which could've been an entirely separate movie. The film jumps and cuts back and forth between so many different ideas, it loses all sense of direction. And the one- liners...OMG! Suffice to say, the one-liners on the trailer are the absolute best the film has. As I said, there's a couple amusing set-piece moments, but hardly enough to offset the dullness and trudgy pace.
Undemanding viewers may derive some pleasure out of Fast and Furious 6 on a completely brainless, intentionally dumb and juvenile level. But Fast Five showed us we can do better.
6.0/10