Directed by:
Justin LinScreenplay:
Chris MorganCinematography:
Stephen F. WindonComposer:
Lucas VidalCast:
Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Tyrese Gibson, Gina Carano, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster (more)VOD (4)
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Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson and Michelle Rodriguez lead an all-star cast as the global blockbuster franchise built on speed delivers the biggest adrenaline rush yet in Fast & Furious 6. Hobbs (Johnson) has been tracking an organization of lethally skilled drivers, whose mastermind (Luke Evans) is aided by the love Dom (Diesel) thought was dead, Letty (Rodriguez). The only way to stop the criminal mercenaries from stealing a top secret weapon is to outmatch them at street level, so Hobbs asks for the help of Dom and his elite team. Payment for the ultimate chase? Full pardons for all of them and a chance to make their families whole again. (Universal Pictures UK)
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The mechanical, hastily put together screenplay of Fast & Furious 6 is closer to Die Hard 5 than to Fast & Furious 5. Meeting, action, meeting, action, meeting, action and so on. The meetings are not as funny as they would like to be and the action is comically exaggerated and not easy enough to follow, given that Fast & Furious is the most successful action series of today. Furthermore, the sixth instalment does not take place in an attractive exotic environment like the fifth one does and its story has detours that make it unnecessarily protracted and less dynamic (the visit in the jail, Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez racing), and we’ve already seen all of its highlights in the trailers.
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It is becoming a purely family affair. The chemistry among the cast is fantastic, the lines, the gags, and most of the dialogues are great. This is not a precisely rehearsed acting performance, this is the natural chemistry between people who have been working together for several years and create an incredibly likeable team. It can be seen, it can be felt. The improvisation, not artificiality, brought me the greatest joy. At the same time, it is good to say that Fast and Furious is slowly moving towards the style of The Expendables, because the cast is increasingly expanding not only in the main roles but also in the supporting roles (this time with Gina Carano). We already know that Jason Statham will be in the next part, so there will certainly be no lack of interesting faces. Despite all of this, the sixth part is not better than the fifth, not by a long shot. It may be "smoother," more grandiose, and with a higher budget, but one thing is megalomania (a tank on a highway) and another thing is scenes that totally lack logic and make the viewer feel like an idiot. The tank's destruction, Vin Diesel as Superman, a 10-kilometer-long runway, these are things that cannot be tolerated. The excellent fight between Carano and Michelle Rodriguez in the subway is good, especially the now legendary staircase-falling scene (captivating work in terms of stunts, camera work, editing, and emotions), a few well-destroyed cars, and excellent sound as a whole. However, the unpleasant "sci-fi" elements that the film is overloaded with are disappointing. It was difficult to go further after the fifth film, but it certainly did not have to go further in terms of action. It should have gone in a slightly different direction.
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Lin has hit his limits, given that situations involving the characters and their emotional interactions elude him, taking his own feet from under him and in the final decision-making, he is unable to offer more than self-sacrificing glances and theatrical gestures. That’s assuming he doesn't fire off any major action bombs, but rather a still technically brilliant arrangement that has since last time abandoned any semblance of reality and ventured into the sci-fi genre (without a major highlight, moreover). This necessarily means a rough and painful fall that's ultimately hampered by the cast where everyone has parked themselves into their roles in a way that feels like they were just born for them.
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Due to the trajectory of the franchise and its concept of a team of criminals as a family, placing the high-octane action in a melodramatic context was probably inevitable. Melodramatic conventions are the reason why the film ends on the second attempt, why it has problems with rhythm and why the characters conform to psychological formulas at the level of three-year-olds. The film’s family theme prevents it from getting out of first gear, as every big action scene is followed by blather about important values, which is only a substitute for a more sophisticated plot. The only one who manages to reflect the obvious melodrama is the main villain, who, of all the film’s characters, is the most capable of rational thought. In the context of a film driven by illogic and sentiment, he represents an anomaly that must be eliminated. ___ The film’s obvious objective and the approximate way of achieving it are introduced shortly after the nostalgic opening credits (which logically and primarily accentuate the “team” level of the previous films), and only after it is achieved does the dully straightforward narrative formula undergo a slight modification: Toretto’s crew comes up with a way to get Shaw. But Shaw is smarter and avoids capture; as he does so, several expensive cars explode and a few anonymous civilians die. So Toretto’s crew comes up with another plan, during the execution of which more expensive cars explode and more anonymous civilians die. Instead of the gradual development of motifs and well-thought-out provision of information, the cards are rashly laid out on the table and the crew rushes pell-mell toward their objective (not even the two small “female” story surprises, one cheap, the other stupid, manage to in any way alter the course of events). The film is even more narratively “disintegrated” than Fast Five, but it doesn’t allow us to watch it undisturbed in a relaxing “standby” mode – enjoyment of the attractions is disrupted by the frequent dialogue, which is always serious about everything. A crucial problem of the film consists in the action scenes themselves, as they are fragmented by numerous unnecessary cuts and peppered with obvious digital tricks (the only car chase in Jack Reacher is directed far more clearly than any given chase in this film). __ Whereas the women in the film are dangerous, treacherous, defenceless, recovering from amnesia or just there to look good, the men were assigned the roles of invaluable protectors, capable lovers and excellent drivers. Fast & Furious 6 is just one big guyish pose, a film that too obviously displays its confidence in itself and the values that it promotes: if you have enough money, physical strength or weapons (or, ideally, a combination thereof), you can afford to go up against practically anyone. But you mustn’t put your family in danger. The relativisation of the villain and protagonist roles by means of self-reflexively pointing out the similarities between the teams facing each other (and whose members will fight each other more or less according to how Roman pairs them off) is ultimately just another false gesture with which Lin tries to conceal the fact that this time he bet more on big muscles, empty slogans and bombastic rhetoric than this 130-minute genre flick can bear. I don’t deny that it’s still a pleasure, but it’s much more of the guilty variety after Fast Five, whose testosterone-fuelled bombast was still generally acceptable. 70%
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... and the bubble burst. NOS² testosterone³ in an absolutely unnecessarily over CGIed action scene which is more like gameplay footage than a regular movie. For Lin, this is a sad return to a never-ending series of routine movies that don’t know when to stop. However much number five was surprising (and deserved) winner of the action premier league, number six is on the brink of relegation to the second league of yawnably familiar rubbish.
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