Level of Absurdity

Rating: 7/10 (25 May 2013)

2011's Fast Five was the franchise's glory for abandoning the sins that slows down their movies and excel to something crazier and suitable to what it is called. Fast & Furious 6 grows the scale with even more ridiculous car racing and stunts. Now it involves a fight between military and terrorism while it has a serious sentiment about family. Things can get way out of hand, but the film is so fun, it's hard complain about how stupid it is. It's not a classic, but the stuff that are supposedly awkward actually made the film a fantastically exhilarating ride.
Before, there were just street racing and cartels. The last one is about an extreme heist. Now they are chasing down super terrorists, running away from tanks, and a character who faked her death. The more stories they tell, the sillier it becomes, but no matter how absurd these are, they are still a pleasure to watch. They are really forgetting the mistakes of the past(first four) films and think more creative ways to excite the viewers. The series also finally has a highlighting villain. A campy one as well that could fit in a superhero movie. The weakest parts of the story are the twists that are much inane than the craziness it was displayed. The sideline of the plot is about family. It contrasts between Dom's team who are loyal, and Owen's team who are careless. It's a fine speculation but nobody would care about it.
We are here for the racing, cars crashing, and some fistfights. The last film had cars that can pull off a vault, now we see a bunch of cars pulling down a cargoplane. It shows how it insanely ignores the laws of physics. It's exasperating if you take it too seriously, but I don't think anyone would ever take a blockbuster like this too seriously. However, they are amazingly directed. The tank scene, which was already beyond ridiculous, was kind of inspired. And the early London chase was an energetic sequence. The performances are the same before. What's new about Vin Diesel is the swagger he makes in the end. Dwayne Johnson is always entertaining, but he is much entertaining when he was beating a guy around an interrogation room. Newcomer Luke Evans really makes a worth rooting villain. His character is not as well developed as any villains from big blockbusters, but he manages to make this one slickly fun.
Fast & Furious 6 reaches the scale of blockbusters that have superheroes, super spies, aliens, or whatever. Except the cars are the ones that have superpowers here. These set of magnificently dumb action sequences reminiscence your standard blockbuster when this film is suppose to be smaller than those kinds of films. It's strangely grander and louder, but of course, it's also as fast as the title suggests. Verdict would still call Fast Five the best of the series, but honestly they are both equally good. This one just takes a new level of absurdity even though the characters are trying to be down to earth. Fast & Furious 6 is far from perfect but as a modern blockbuster it's an extremely entertaining film.