A ‘high point’ features the group listing engine components while another sequence sees Roman (Tyrese Gibson) losing a fight in front of dozens of witnesses then telling Han (Sung Kang), “No-one needs to know about this”. In one Thameside showdown, Shaw explains his MO to Dom, but his motto isn’t even original – it’s the same as The Wire’s Omar. That said, Chris Morgan’s screenplay doesn’t help – it’s effectively one long sequence of ‘And meanwhile, in…’ scenes, with a strangely high amount of recycled dialogue. But Lin seems well aware that the film slows to a crawl when the plot mechanics kick in, and so tosses in wisecracks and punch-ups wherever possible to keep the momentum up. There are beats about an all-powerful weapon, finding a car manufacturer, finding a gun, going undercover in a prison, etc. After a credit sequence which recaps the previous films (a tacit admission that this franchise has been on the road for too long), we travel to London where Agent Hobbes (Dwayne Johnson) has recruited Dom and his team to take on the terrorising Owen Shaw (a forgettable Luke Evans). Our old life is over”.Įxcept, of course, it isn’t. We open with a Canary Islands pursuit, revealed as Bryan’s (Walker) frantic effort to be on time for his first child’s birth before Dom (Diesel) intones, in one of humanity’s deepest ever voices, “Once you go through those doors, everything changes.
Don’t show Johnson shoot a vending machine in the same manner as Chief Wiggum changing the TV channel, or Diesel defying the laws of physics, or a 150mph pursuit through apparently deserted London streets, then expect audiences to even shrug when one character betrays another, or an effectively anonymous supporting player loses his equally forgettable loved one.Īs for the plot, it’s less a narrative, more a loose framework within which to place as many pedal-to-the-metal fights, brawls and gags as possible. Returning director Lin tries to pull off the same trick again but is so desperate to make the sixth film bigger, funnier and more explosive than the fifth, that the vehicle ends up spinning off the track.Ĭharacters here are resurrected as readily and often as a WWE plotline – a brand with which the film seems to be involved in some mutual advertising push – the always-charismatic Johnson clotheslines a villain, uses his ‘guarandamtee’ catchphrase and even refers to the special move of fellow wrestler Chris Jericho.īut it’s not unreasonable to hope for a little consistency of tone. The addition of Dwayne Johnson into the bursting chassis of the Fast & Furious franchise gave a conked-out model some extra juice in the dumb, entertaining and extremely homoerotic Fast Five. In the most memorable sequence from this high-octane yet actually quite boring action epic, Diesel leaps jumps from a moving car across a bridge, tackling another character in mid-air before landing on another moving car. Most important, however, is the world-changing realisation that Vin Diesel has apparently managed to harness the power of flight. We also shouldn’t forget that director Justin Lin is attempting to break Michael Bay’s record of continuous camera spinning. With this movie, we can now confirm that, a) Gina Carano (star of Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire) is a great screen presence and that, b) screenwriter Chris Morgan believes a screenplay should have as many one-line zingers as there are minutes in the film (which are lots). There are lessons to be learnt from this sixth instalment in the cars/quips/boobs franchise, such as, if a plot is getting bogged down in detail, whack a fight to spice things up. The chase/stunt/joke formula is played to diminishing returns in the latest instalment of this 18-wheeler franchise.