Fast & Furious 6 Was a Non-Stop, Nonsensical Thrill Ride!

Fast & Furious 6 has already made $327 million worldwide. A lot of people – both smart and dumb, ironically and sincerely – have paid good money to watch Fast 6. I was among those people as I sat in a packed theater at 7:40 pm Sunday evening. I have a lot of thoughts about the movie, the franchise and movies in general. SPOILERS AHEAD! 

The Parking Lot: I’ll start in the parking lot. When the original movie came out, I remember people peeling out and driving like maniacs. My Fast 6 experience began and ended with incidents in the parking lot. When we arrived, the mall parking lot was full. I navigated a few aisles before seeing someone getting ready to leave. So I settled in to wait for a giant van full of college-aged girls to pull out of a prime spot. Here is the final 48-seconds of the 3-minute, 15-point turn that got them out of the spot.

Mike added some Ludacris to the audio so that you wouldn’t hear my rant about how this girl was driving. It was like the scene in Austin Powers where he is trying to turn around the golf cart – except nothing like that because look at all the freaking room! Fast? No. Furious? Yes. When we left the theater, I didn’t peel out, but I did scare the shit out of an older woman walking to her car. I accelerated just enough to startle her so she ran in heels as her girlfriends laughed at her. The things these movies do to us …

Box Office: Fast 6 made $96.79 million opening weekend which is good for the 27th biggest opening ever. Fast 5 made $86 million. Fast & Furious (a.k.a. Fast 4) made $70 million. 2 Fast, 2 Furious made $50 million. The original The Fast & the Furious made $40 million when it originally came out in 2001. The only film in the franchise that didn’t make its money back opening weekend was Tokyo Drift.

Justin Lin, Director: After directing a couple movies you probably haven’t heard of, Lin directed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It was the least successful film in the entire franchise and it was named The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. How in the world did they let him direct another movie?

Justin Lin took over and made the least successful movie in the entire franchise and then somehow got to make three more – each bigger than the last. Justin Lin directed three episodes of Community. Three episodes of Community when the show was good. Now Lin is leaving Fast & Furious because he felt rushed to make Fast 7. Allowing Justin Lin to walk away from this franchise is unforgivable.

Title Sequence: There were opening credits, but like with a theme song and a footage from the previous movies. Like Fast & Furious is a television program. This happened. During a movie.

Things Happen: This is the main crux of all Fast movies. Things happen. Do not think about these things happening or why they are happening or how they are happening. They are happening.  You should enjoy them happening.

Jason Statham: The Stath will be the villain in Fast 7. Taking a page from the Die Hard franchise, Jason Statham will most definitely be revealed to be Owen Shaw’s older brother, Jason Statham Shaw. That’s why he masterminded a car accident that he himself was in on the streets of Tokyo.

Buying Cars: Remember when The Rock and Ludacris bought the fancy cars and the snooty salesman was asked to take off his shirt and pants because they wanted to get back at him because he said they didn’t have money?

Jumping on Cars: There was a lot of jumping from one moving thing onto another moving thing and everyone being fine.

Death & Fast & Furious: You only die if the writers want you to die. And even then, you aren’t necessarily dead. Ludacris and Tyrese are both involved in horrific car crashes early in Fast 6. And Vin Diesel too. Everyone walked away without so much as a sprained ankle.

Michele Rodriguez died in Fast 4, but they decided she didn’t die. She just went to the hospital where one of the bad guys took her and poof she had no memories. What is the point of her never getting any memories back?

Han Seoul-Oh is the name of a character who died in Tokyo Drift, the third Fast movie. Instead of keeping him dead, they decided Tokyo Drift took place in the not so distance future. Sung Kang, who plays Han, is 41.

Which deceased character will return for Fast 7? Vince probably. Who will return despite not dying? Bow Wow and Lucas Black, obviously. Why? Because Vin Diesel showed up and drifted at the end of Tokyo Drift so that means that they are all family in the future too. Or the present.

Paul Walker Goes to Prison: Remember when Paul Walker had to break in to prison so he could talk to the villain from Fast 4? He assumed another criminal identity and beat up his former cop buddy and got put in solitary confinment so that the villain from Fast 4 would visit him and tell him nothing and then he would beat up everyone and get no information and then just be back in London in about 20 minutes? What was that? Seriously.

Tyrese – He is so awful. The comic relief shouldn’t make me want to throw a 64-ounce Coke at the screen. I’d sit through another 45 minutes of “weahfamlydrinkincaronuhbahbecuin” nonsense from Vin Diesel than another 45 seconds of Tyrese. He flew all the way to London for this super secret caper and can’t wait another 3 minutes to grab some candy? And then he shot the supercharged grappling hook and almost hit Vin Diesel.

The Rock: Dwyane Johnson is awesome. Always. He shot a candy machine because Tyrese was being annoying as fuck. Seriously.

London Street Race: Vin Diesel showed up at a London street race and proceeded to beat Michelle Rodriguez despite just getting to London. How did he know where any of the turns were? How did the entire crew have such intimate knowledge of the streets of London? At least in previous films they showed GPS’s. See: Things Happen.

Final Chase Part 1: The highway chase was important because there was a tank. And that tank was ruined by a tiny car. And the only car the tank did not immediately flatten was Tyrese’s car. And remember when Michelle Rodriguez went flying through the air and Vin Diesel jumped and caught her in midair and he didn’t know the car would be there to break their fall? That was awesome.

Gina Carano, Double-Secret Agent: This reveal was so ham-fisted and awkward that it was the only thing that made sense in the whole movie. Of course, the agent working with The Rock was really working with the bad guy. That’s why she shot at her fellow bad guys and fought Michelle Rodriguez and tried to arrest her. Never mind. I guess that doesn’t make any sense.

Final Chase Part 2 Electric Super Long Runway-iloo: The key to stopping the giant plane was shooting the flaps on the wings. They did this. Then their tiny cars were ALL hanging from the airplane. And this took like half an hour. And the bad guy and the giant guy had a tag team match with Vin Diesel and The Rock and the crowd in the theater had an audible reaction. And the girl who got the handprint from the bad guy by getting patted on the ass in the other movie fell and died? Then Vin Diesel drove a car through an exploding airplane and everything blew up and Vin Diesel walked through the fire with the secret chip and all he wanted was the house from the first movie?

That Runway Though…: That runway was either 100 miles long or we just didn’t see where the pilots kept turning around at the end of the air strip.

NOS: Everything is better with NOS. Imagine if that plane had NOS. Or the tank had NOS. Then the cars would have needed NOS to counteract the NOS that those much larger vehicles had.

Seriously Though: How did Paul Walker get out of prison?

This Movie Was Amazing: THIS MOVIE WAS AMAZING!