Fast and Furious 6 (2013)

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nTitle: Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

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nDirector: Justin Lin

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nCast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, MichellenRodriguez, Sung Kang, Tyrese Gibson, Gal Gadot, Ludacris, Luke Evans, ElsanPataki

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nReview:

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nThe important thing about a summer blockbuster is that itnhas to entertain; it has to blow you out of that seat and it has to make younleave that theater with a big fat grin on your face, and quite possibly the desirento see the film again. Fast Six achieves all these things with spectacularnaplomb. With each film, the Fast and the Furious franchise has improved in quality; each film bigger than the last. Keeping in linenwith this tendency, Fast Six is more explosive and more action packed then the previousnfilm and in my book that’s saying a lot because I truly enjoyed Fast Five (2011)!nAside from the fact that the film was shot in my home town and I had an amazing opportunity to see it getting made, Fast Five ended up being one of mynfavorites of the summer 2011 season, it was simply put a good action film. Nowncan somebody tell me how in the hell did this franchise which I initiallyndisliked turn into one my favorite guilty pleasures?
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nWhen talking about films of this nature, there’s a term usednto describe the artifact that triggers the action in the film, I’m talkingnabout ‘The McGuffin’ whatever it is that the good guys and bad guys are afternin the film. The McGuffin is a name given to the excuse to get the show on thenroad. Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter what the McGuffin is, all that mattersnis how they go about getting it, which in a Fast and the Furious film meansnvehicular warfare and massive destruction of public property, and trust me,nthere’s lots of that in this film! The stunts are the best part of these filmsnand this one delivers the goods when it comes to fast cars and destruction innmassive amounts. The film has two major action sequences, but they are bothnextended, which means that they last for more than 20 minutes each. This isnsomething I enjoy about the action sequences in these films, they are intricatenand extensive! The same can be said for the chase sequences which take place innboth the streets of London and Brazil. If you are a fan of cool cars andnwatching them fly in the air, you will be pleased.

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nThe whole thing about these films getting bigger and baddernwith each passing film stays true to the characters as well. These charactersnstarted out being a gang of street racing thugs from L.A. on the first film, bynthe sixth film they’ve turned into indestructible super heroes! They can jumpnfrom one moving car to the next! They can shoot their guns while jumpingnthrough the air! I mean, these guys can fall down a flight of stairs or crashninto the windshield of a car and never even break a bone! Vin Diesel can evenntake a freaking bullet and go on driving in the next scene just fine. So mynadvice is to throw all your expectations of reality out the door. This film isn’tninterested in being real, it just wants to wow you, entertain you with its exaggeratednaction sequences, which I have to say are truly fun. We get a bunch of coolncars, a tank and military plane! They really do go all out here in using allnmanner of cool vehicles.

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nIt was a genius idea adding Dwayne Johnson into these seriesnof films. I’ve always thought that Johnson is the natural successor to Arnold Schwarzenegger,nand it seems there’s no stopping him now! The Rock starred in three films thisnsummer season (G.I. Joe Retaliation, Pain and Gain and now this one)and they’venall been huge money makers. I’m thinking we’ll be seeing a whole lot more of DwaynenJohnson in action films! Now all he needs is a cool sci-fi film or a super heronfilm, I can’t believe they’ve taken this long to do that. On Fast Six he has ancouple of cool moments, but one of them involves him going ‘mano a mano’ withnanother massive dude, the battle is epic, the people in my theater wherenchearing! Audiences are really into these films! When the title for the filmncame up on screen some dude screamed “Whoo-hoo!” And speaking of fist fights,nthe girls in the film also get a chance to show what they are made in a fightnthat takes place in a subway station in London. Pretty cool scene, MichellenRodriguez and Gina Carano give a whole new meaning to cat fight. They really gonat each other’s throats!
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nTrue, the acting is not good at all in these films,nespecially when Vin Diesel tries his stab at sentimentalism and gets all mushynon us. It’s just too funny. But whatever, we don’t go to a movie like this onensearching for the performance of the year, we go into a movie like this for thenfun factor and on this one, the fun factor is quite high. When the action getsngoing, it gets going. On the downside of things, there’s some faults in the logicnof some scenes, for example, there’s a scene that takes place on a landingnfield, with a plane attempting to take off that was cool as hell, but alsonunbelievable as hell because the landing field seemed to last forever and ever.nThe filmmakers obviously had lots of cool stunts to pull off for that bignfinale, unfortunately they forgot all about the logistics of a landing strip.nThere’s no way in hell that a landing strip would go on for as long as the onenin this film does! That minor quip aside, I had tons of fun here. These filmsnare similar to reading a comic book, with a “to be continued” attached to thenending…and this entry is no different. The ending will leave you wanting more, Inaint gonna spoil it for you, but if what I saw in the ending is any indication,npart seven should be pretty kick ass as well. I hear they are going back tonL.A. for that one! The series will apparently come full circle, looking forwardnto that.

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nRating: 4 out of 5 

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