Sixth 'Fast & Furious' Installment Adds High-Octane Fuel to Summer Movie Season

Fast rides and battle tanks duke it out on a European highway in Fast & Furious 6.

Change can do wonders. For a brief time, "The Fast and the Furious" franchise was in complete disarray courtesy of its third installment, Tokyo Drift, a film that stayed true to the high-octane racing niche, but failed to maintain the integrity of the initial 2001 Vin Diesel and Paul Walker action vehicle.

Much like the previous two installments, Fast and Furious and Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 breathes new life into a once-dying franchise, concentrating on unrealistic complex heists plus international vehicular warfare now added to the equation. Fast & Furious 6 picks up where the 2011 film left off. Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) are living large overseas, putting a life of crime in the rear-view mirror.

However, the party's short-lived when DSS agent Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) from the previous film recruits the crew to take down an international terrorist (Luke Evans) and his second-in-command, Vin Diesel's supposedly dead girlfriend, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez).

Fast & Furious 6 is the sequel that had to be made, especially with tease at the end of Fast Five revealing Letty was still alive but caught up in some unknown criminal activity. Director Justin Lin ultimately takes that small 30-second snippet from the last movie and stretches into a paper-thin 130-minute sixth movie. Fast & Furious 6 isn't here to wow audiences with its writing or acting. It does what a summer popcorn blockbuster is intended to do, be entertaining and over-the-top as an adrenaline-packed form of escapism.

Dom and his crew globetrot across Europe and while London and Spain aren't in the same ballpark as being a visually appealing backdrop as Rio was in Fast Five, Lin still manages to make best use of what the environmental constraints he's given. The tech is amped up from the previous as are their hideouts as if it's supposed to be an improvement on Fast Five. But all the flashy new toys and rides still can't  hide the fact that Fast & Furious 6 is a notch below the last film.  

Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez go through the same motions as the previous few films, bringing nothing new to the action-heavy table. These four have been doing these movies for quite a long time and their performances in one don't change that much in any other. The exception of course being Michelle Rodriguez, who's gone rogue since Fast and Furious, aligning herself with one-dimensional terrorist Owen Shaw (Evans). Being a red-hot baddie is certainly a change of pace for the Letty character as being a more prominent component to the overall story. For what it's worth, Rodriguez delivers as Letty and we want her to reunite with Vin Diesel before the film's credits.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returns as the hulky Agent Hobbs, who instead of  hunting down Toretto and his crew is now on the same page to take down a common enemy. Gina Carano joins the cast as Hobbs' partner, Riley, a completely unimpressive throwaway role with no real reason to be part of the team or more so the film. 

Fast & Furious 6 loves to bash and smash up highways and rides for the sake of being ridiculously entertaining. There's even one point where a battle tank joins in on the action and starts wreaking havoc. Fun? Definitely. Smart? Of course not. Fast & Furious 6 never takes itself too seriously with its overblown action and campy one-liners from 2 Fast 2 Furious alums, Tyrese and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges.

Fast & Furious 6 doesn't have the legs to stand as its own film, serving as a crucial cog in the franchise machine highly dependent on the notion that audiences have seen the other five films. The opening credits recap highlights the main plot points, but the cliff notes version doesn't suffice for newcomers. For all its thrills and mindless action, Fast & Furious 6 is just a 2-hour setup for next summer's final installment.

GRADE: B+ (8/10)