My mind almost exploded many times throughout this movie. Myself as well as most of the folks at Universal I’m sure are surprised this franchise has made it to the sixth installment. There is now a huge ensemble of characters from various films to keep track of as well as new ones being introduced, so it comes as a huge compliment to say I was never confused throughout ‘Furious 6’ (the opening title). I have not been this giddy while watching a movie in theatres since ‘Transformers’. It’s probably Tyrese.

Granted, these are two franchises who have hardly ever tried to court realism. This movie is so Ludicrous that the audience I was with was laughing at what was being portrayed on screen. ‘To think this series used to centre around street racing’, I thought as a cargo plane is coming down on a military base rife with explosions.

Vin Diesel is passable, Paul Walker is the same as usual (kinda boring). The screen time is well divided among the entire cast with everyone getting their own moments. Tyrese has become the series comic relief which I don’t mind. The fights, chases and races are superbly choreographed, top notch and the best part is the movie seems pretty self-aware. It irks me to find out that the next installment will be without its main director (Justin Lin, on board since the third).

There are a few faults with the movie of course as no movie is without them. The decisions made by some of the characters make almost no sense. The plausibility angle is stretched beyond breaking point, even for the series. It wasn’t revealed what the McGuffin that was driving the plot was until the last 30 minutes. I imagine the writers getting so far ahead of themselves that they resorted to one upmanship handing over the script of the last scene trying to screw each other over.

This is just me nitpicking though, because in a way I found it all just so confounding what was happening onscreen that I couldn’t help but be engaged. A series that is able to get this far while standing on its shaky and genre shifting pillars deserves to be commended. See it in theatres!

Rating: +3

-3          -2          -1          0          +1          +2          +3

Tidbits

• Before the production on the first installment began; Christian Bale and Natalie Portman were in talks to star, according to IMDB

• James Wan the director of Saw, Death Sentence, and Insidious is in line to direct the seventh installment rumoured for a 2014 release

• A good analogy for the movie