My take: I hadn't seen any of this franchise's movies before '11, but the rhapsodic Fast Five reviews led me to rent it, and I very much enjoyed it, so today I made it out to Numero Seis.
Alas, Fast Five this ain't.
For starters, this is one dark movie. Visually speaking, that is. Two of the three major action sequences take place at night, in underlit streets and an isolated area, and that just isn't very much fun. There's also far too much quick-cutting and super close-ups during brawls and chases alike, so boo on that.
Second, the plot (and yes, plot is important even in this sort of flick) is totally meh. Something about stopping a baddie from stealing a microchip that could wreak havoc on an entire nation's communications network. (Just how it would do this is not explained or even handwaved.) And, because there are so few bad-guy ideologies left in the world, we get yet another standard-issue "the villain is really just an utterly immoral freelancer, who'll sell the WMD to the real creeps" plot. Yawn. Worse still, our heroes start off fabulously wealthy, and their quest to rescue Michelle Rodriguez isn't nearly as interesting as their rags-to-riches heist plot of Five. If her character was interesting before, she certainly isn't here.
Third, the locations are pretty drab. We trade in the favelas and balmy streets of Rio for a few Mediterranean cameos, but mostly a London and isolated military base setting. London is of course a wonderful city, but it isn't nearly as good a fit for the heavily Latin/outlaw Furious flavor. We get two big chases through magically under-populated streets at night, but neither is very compelling, and the drag race party scene is culturally absurd even by this franchise's standards.
Fourth and most important, though, the villain is seriously weak sauce, a completely generic Eloquent and Civil Yet Dastardly Brit. His driving motivation? "Efficiency". Snore. Five's cartel baron was far more hiss-able, and The Rock made for a great grudging pursuer. Here, The Rock plays the Da Chief part, which isn't nearly as interesting. And he does something late in the movie that should make him one of the fugitives permanently, but doesn't.
Also, Gina Carano fails to make much of an impression. And despite being in the F5 end credits bonus, Eva Mendes is absent.
Did I like anything about the movie? Sure: the cast is fun to watch, there's some great dubiously-intentional laughs, and the end-credits scene makes me look forward to the seventh outing. It plods in the middle and towards the end - the final action sequence is kinda dry toast - but it never quite becomes boring.
All in all, whereas Five was definitely worth a ticket, this is definitely worth a rental. Here's hoping the new villain gets to shine, the locations become exotic and sun-soaked again, and Michelle gets to play a lot more fun and less blank/confused next time.
C+
