Good action movie, but doesn't fully live up to its past

Rating: 7/10 (24 May 2013)

I am a a big fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, I own them all. Typically I rank them according to my beliefs as to how well they were done. In my mind, from best to worst: 5,4,1,3, and 2. When I look at Fast 6, I would have to put it somewhere between 4 and 1.
Here's why I think this: the Fast and Furious franchise was based on the premise of fast, gorgeous cars and the shades of gray between good and bad, mostly marketed towards the gear head segment of the population. With Fast 5, we see that they are now trying to re-brand the franchise as a heist series with cars as the central method for pulling off these heists.
Fast 5 did this spectacularly in my opinion, but Fast 6 was a step down. First of all, the cars were not given as much emphasis as even Fast 5 did. The fact that many of the driving sequences in this movie happen at night and the cars are mainly painted dark colors shows a distinct movement away from the car culture that made the series so popular.
Secondly, this movie seems to try too hard to be funny at times. In the previous movie, there was a definite light-heartedness about the characters and their banter, but in Fast 6 the humor is not that funny and tends to be forced into inappropriate times and places.
Bottom line: if you go to this movie expecting it to be a perfect continuation of the excellence of the previous movie you will be disappointed. However, if you go to see beautiful cars crash, things blow up, and epic fistfights this is the summer movie for you.