First Take: Fast & Furious 6- building to the magnum opus of car films

SYPNOSIS:

Hobbs has Dominic and Brian reassemble their crew to take down a team of mercenaries: Dominic unexpectedly gets convoluted also facing his presumed deceased girlfriend, Letty.

I love it when a film goes local, and with most of the opening act taking place in London, Fast and Furious 6 had me hooked- and I might say that this is the best film in the series so far.

With (almost) the same crew behind the film, it’s time for a short and sweet technical roster rundown. Justin Lin’s direction. Excellent. Chris Morgan’s script. More sharp and more refined, with a lot more action than ever. Stephen F. Windon’s cinematography. More elaborate than ever. Music from Lucas Vidal. Not quite as good as the other films, but still satisfying.

Now, the performances. All of the crew from Fast Five are back, including the likes of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Ludacris, Dwayne Johnson and others, and they are just as good as ever, but for fans, the return of Michelle Rodriguez as Letty links all the films so far together, but for me the real standout was Luke Evans, once again playing a menacing villain in the form of Owen Shaw.

THE VERDICT

Combined with Fast Five, this is a film that shows how the franchise originally meant to be just the one film has evolved in Hollywood- with action at every stage, a great script, and some good performances, Universal have got mainstream audiences into this film series, and there is clearly a future for this franchise- but can they deliver?

Rating: 4/5