150 Movies in 90 Days: Insidious and The Book of Eli

June 30: #28, Insidious

Another day, another mediocre PG-13 horror movie

I'm over the whole PG-13 horror film phenomenon. Yes, I get it- it makes more sense to make a movie that teenagers can get into and ruin for everybody else who is there to watch the damn thing. After all, they're the jerks with all the disposable income. But come on. Can we get a little artistic integrity here? I mean, the problem with making films that specifically avoid leaving out people aged 13-16 is that you can accidentally end up making a movie for people aged 13-16.

You know, people who haven't seen 1,000 "haunted house" films before and thus, might not be completely bored with all of the tropes that fill the first half of Insidious, in other words. You know what I'm talking about: doors open on their own, or (gasp!) even close! People see things that seem to be out of their imagination. Then, you have to have at least one visit from a pastor, priest, exorcist, or psychic. Hey, if you have the money, call all four!

But mostly, doors open and close. A lot.

The first half of Insidious is seriously just a paint-by-numbers haunted house flick, even though it's a pretty good one, stylishly-directed and well-acted. Sure, it isn't the house that is specifically haunted... the fact that the problems follow the family to their new domicile is the first really creative thing that takes place in this film. Of course, you know it's going to happen since the foreshadowing is laid on thicker than a hooker's makeup (director James Wan gives us shot after shot of a grandfather clock), but we'll take what we can get.

When you see the direction the film goes when it starts to shoot for something original, you almost wish they'd have stuck to the typical stuff, instead. We get into astral projection and other stuff that seems forced into the narrative, which leads to a trip to the demon's lair. Now, the demon's lair is pretty cool, and the demon himself is pretty freaky looking, but the film has no real teeth, and you know nobody is really in danger. By the time you realize that the demon isn't going to use the scary claws he's been ominously sharpening to actually hurt someone (because in typical PG-13 style, he'd rather simply throw people around the room), there isn't much reason to fear him, though.

Other than the fact that he's obviously related to Darth Maul, of course.

Insidious has some spooky moments, especially when we first get introduced to the demon. Even the stereotypical creepily smiling girls are at least unsettling, even if they're now a horror film cliché. The acting is pretty damn good for a horror flick, as Patrick Wilson (the father) is good and everyone else does a capable job of selling fear and growing tension. Overall though, this is just another forgettable, mediocre horror film in a proud genre that deserves better. Grade: C-

July 1: #29, The Book of Eli

Abandon all hope, ye who desire strong female characters

Your enjoyment of The Book of Eli strongly depends on what you are hoping to get out of the film. As a huge nerd (go figure, right?) who loves the Fallout series of video games, I was pretty much hoping that this would essentially be Fallout: The Movie. For the first half of the movie, I was pretty pleased, then. I was not, of course, expecting well-rounded characters or fair treatment of women, because even before I saw this film I used it as evidence for a paper about the tendency of post-apocalyptic storytelling to only use women as helpless pawns.

In The Book of Eli, you do not meet a single female character who isn't an indentured servant, a tool who uses her sexuality to help raiders prey upon tourists, a rape/murder victim, or a straight-up prostitute. See, because women can't survive the apocalypse! They lack the big biceps and uh, other stuff that dudes totally have that you need to survive, you see.

What is the "other stuff"? Well, if you watch Eli (Denzel Washington), you quickly learn that the "other stuff" is "the ability to kill a lot of men very quickly while avoiding any type of injury." Oh, and let's not forget weapon skills. Because it's important to have skills.

Pictured: Guy who knows what it takes to survive the apocalypse

Okay, though. Let's say that you haven't had your mind altered by a dozen college-level English courses in a way that ruins movies for you for the rest of your life. You'll probably like The Book of Eli, and I pretty much did, too.

Denzel is good for a number of things, such as Attacking People Very Suddenly and Speaking In A Firm, Forceful Tone. Those abilities are put to good use here. The screenplay even lets him laugh a couple of times! The other person you'll see a lot is Mila Kunis, and though I'm not necessarily a huge fan of hers, I do find her a) very sexy and b) quite tolerable. Not here, though. In no way, shape, or form is she very believable as a girl who has grown up in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and has been hardened by what is essentially a life of slavery. Now, once you forget who she's supposed to be and just pretend that she's Mila Kunis playing in the desert, it's not so bad. But I'm pretty sure that's not what the Hughes brothers intended.

Speaking of the Hughes brothers, I've always liked their work, even if something like Menace II Society seems like a parody now (it still holds up better than John Singleton's Higher Learning). They're good here, particularly in the fight scenes and with some predictably awesome panoramic shots of Denzel walking in the wasteland. In one pivotal shootout in particular (you'll know the one), they maneuver the cameras from inside a house through a window, to where the opposition are firing angrily, sweeping around to show the carnage as it takes place before going backwards through the window and into the house where it all started, without a single cut. Plenty of inspired sequences like this are seen in the film and help it to stay out of the realm of "forgettable action flick" that the second half of the movie wants to drag down to. Grade: B

150 Movies in 90 Days: World War Z

June 29: #27, World War Z

I wish it had been boring, so I could make a 'World War Zzzzz' joke

The spring and summer months never have a shortage of trailers with plenty of “wow” moments, so I kept my expectations in check when I first saw the trailer for World War Z. Seeing hordes of zombies rabidly climbing over one another to mount a huge wall was quite a sight, though, as was the other memorable shot, which featured several zombies working together to bring down a helicopter.

The trailer hinged upon those two moments (and a “zombies on a plane” moment that led to zombies and people alike getting sucked out of the plane at 30,000 feet) so much that I expected World War Z to be a letdown (or as I put it, a “turd”). I mean, there’s no way that the rest of the film can do those moments justice, right?

A couple of days ago, the wifey and I went to see World War Z and find out for ourselves. What I ended up seeing was a surprisingly competent summer blockbuster which only suffered a bit from a bit of an anticlimactic third act and the kind of logical quandaries that, well, you usually find in summer blockbusters.

Now, I have not read the books and therefore, this is my first exposure to World War Z, period. This review is going to be free of the angst that accompanies just about any film adaptation of a beloved book, then. Also, I don’t really frequent movie news websites, so I had no idea about the completely re-imagined ending, production issues, and other problems that plagued the film on its way to release.

I wasn’t surprised to find that the original ending had been completely scrapped and changed, though, because the final third of the film, set at the World Health Organization, provides such a thematic shift from the larger-than-life action of the rest of the film. Generally, films like this build to a crescendo rather than featuring a tenser, subtler, more personal climax. Having said that, I read about the original ending, and it sucked.  The film is better for the change, even if it doesn’t lead as obviously into a sequel, which they are planning on doing, anyway. (Don’t worry, I won’t spoil the real ending, and it’s nothing like the original plan, so reading about how terrible the original ending was won’t ruin World War Z for you.)

The original ending would have featured a huge zombie battle in Russia, which sure, would have been cool. But it also would have featured protagonist Gerry Lane’s (Brad Pitt) wife and kids in a compromising situation where his wife, Karin (played well by Mireille Enos) has to, ahem, “barter” with her own body in order to receive protection for her and her children, which then apparently becomes a bizarre love triangle where the soldier who is “protecting” her encourages Gerry via radio to go find a fresh start and leave him and Karin alone. Riiiiiight. 

That’s beside the fact that Gerry is fighting in Russia simply because he got off the plane, had a gun thrust into his face, and was told he’s joining the army. We would have warped to a point in time months later, where he’s a commando badass type spearheading the battle against the zombies. Bleh to that, and a double-bleh to the well-worn, sexist assumption that in any post-apocalyptic situation, women either a) die, b) are liabilities, or c) become prostitutes to survive.

Anyway, the film has several jaw-dropping visuals, the zombies are awesome (yes, I am completely in favor of fast zombies- we’re supposed to believe that people can survive death until shot in the head, but not that they can run in such an undead state?), and the acting is sturdy enough for this type of fare. The ending is noticeably tacked on and doesn’t feel altogether satisfying or particularly great as a setup for a sequel, but whatever. 

The other head-scratcher here is that even though most of the world has turned zombie, things seem to be running more or less as usual. Everyone has electricity, people in Israel (with the high walls to keep zombies from getting in) are not rioting or panicking, etc. There is no real hint of the wider consequences of most of the population of earth simply ceasing to be around to perform their usual duties, which I've heard that the book addresses in detail. But hey, that’s just not what the film is trying to do. Grade: B+

150 Movies in 90 Days: Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

June 24: #25, Lincoln

Four score and seven years ago...was the last time I watched a movie

 

Lincoln begins with a short, but effectively brutal look into the messy realities of the Civil War, as the Battle of Jenkins Ferry is raging when the film opens. Black and white soldiers fight one another not with guns, but with bayonets and fists while sloshing in several feet of muddy water. From the filthy opening that shows the price of change, we enter a film that is as much about the sloppy business of getting anything done in politics as it is about Abraham Lincoln itself.

Director Steven Spielberg says that he decided to focus on the four-month period of Lincoln’s life leading up to the ratification of the 13^th Amendment because otherwise, the scope of the project would be so large that a single film couldn’t contain it all. It’s a fair assessment, and there’s something to be said for the fact that we do get to see many sides of Lincoln- father, husband, idealist, and stubbornly obsessed politician- even though the film covers just four months of his historic life.

So why does it all feel so boring? Part of it is surely that many of the cast members do not bring the understated brilliance that Daniel Day-Lewis, who is clearly the greatest living actor in the world, brings to the title role. Others, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Lincoln’s oldest son) bring too much emotion to roles that require a touch more subtlety. Then there’s Sally Field, who even in a role that demands occasional hysterics, manages to overplay it.

The exception to the rule is Tommy Lee Jones, who is great as Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the House of Representatives and staunch abolitionist. Jones knows when to show some subtlety and when to let it all hang out, even if he does take on a role with less complexity than the others, being as Stevens is one of the only people in the film that knows what he wants from beginning to end and does not waver.

The film is technically sound, with Spielberg knowing how to bring out the epic feel of important moments while filming the more private moments of Lincoln’s life in a more familiar, intimate way. It’s just a shame that there aren’t more of those moments. Lincoln’s dedication and will are at center stage here, even if the reasons why he is so determined are left for the viewer (especially one who is not well-versed on Lincoln) to decide for him or herself. The film is notable for a couple of great acting performances, and it is interesting to see that even with such a no-brainer of an amendment (hindsight being 20/20, of course), some dirty dealing had to go on to make it all happen. However, I can’t help but feel that the film as a whole is a bit of a missed opportunity. Grade: B-

June 25: #26, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Way better than George Washington: Zombie Killer

  

Watching these two back-to-back seemed like a cute idea, but immediately became problematic for a number of reasons. One of which is that while I am not the kind of person who goes into an action film looking for Academy Award-level acting performances, it’s hard to watch Daniel Day-Lewis knock the role of Abraham Lincoln out of the park, then see Benjamin Walker stumble through a rough approximation of the man where he basically just says things in a slightly deep voice and with as much seriousness as he can muster.

If I hadn’t watched Lincoln, I wouldn’t have minded the inferior performances of any of the cast members in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, nor the fact that the timeline of Lincoln’s kids is entirely thrown off so that his oldest son, Will, can be used in a plot point later in the film.

I mean, none of that really matters in a movie about Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires, right? In fact, for the first half of the movie, you wonder why it has to be Lincoln and not just any old person fighting vampires, other than the obvious novelty of it. It isn’t until the film is fast-forwarded (which means you have to believe that the vampires who want to ruin him just leave him alone all of a sudden for 25 years) that the whole thing gets tied (rather ludicrously, but still) into the Civil War and you see that there’s some creativity at work here.

When you see that young Abraham Lincoln’s training for the rough and tumble world of vampire hunting consists only of a) fighting in the dark and b) axe twirling, you know that the action scenes will be not be moored to reality. And oh, man, are the action scenes batshit-crazy. I mean, if you think the concept of Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires is crazy on its own, wait until you’ve seen Abraham Lincoln hunting a vampire during a stampede of about a thousand wild stallions, vaulting from one horse to the next, or Abraham Lincoln hunting a vampire while on a moving train that is racing at high speeds across a burning bridge.

While the dramatic scenes are bland, the action scenes come alive and are stylishly done, with moody skies, vampires jumping out of paintings, and great special effects. Mostly, the stylistic choices work for director Timur Bekmambetov. The exception is when he goes to the well too many times, as when he does the “slow motion, followed by extremely fast motion, followed again by slow motion” trick that is meant to highlight the best parts of any particular fight. It’s cool in small doses, but it happens ALL THE TIME and becomes obnoxious here. Grade: C+

150 Movies in 90 Days: The Entire Fast and the Furious Series

June 17: #19, The Fast and the Furious

"I live my life a quarter mile at a time."

 

Other than the first installment, I hadn’t seen any of the films of this franchise, and I’d only seen that one once. To be honest, I didn’t have much interest in it until Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson signed on for the fifth installment. Johnson has had four films in theaters already this year (in four consecutive months, actually), and my brother and I are pretty big fans, so we’ve seen three of the four so far. To complete Rock-a-thon 2013, we’re going to see Fast & Furious 6, so I figured I might as well re-watch the first and check out the rest of the series for the first time, while I’m at it.

Plus, I just watched Citizen Kane. It only makes sense to follow it up with The Fast and the Furious, right?

So, the Fast series is home to bad acting, terribly stereotyped characters, and ugly neon cars with stupid-looking paint jobs, and it all begins with the original. Right off the bat, we get our first ridiculous/awesome stunt, as a car drives under a semi during an extremely high risk high-jacking of said vehicle. 

Fortunately, the sweet stunt soon gives way to awful acting and dialogue. When a jealous guy shows up, angry that the protagonist, Brian O’Conner (played with zero charisma by Paul Walker) has been eating every day at the diner where the girl that he likes works at, he says angrily to his buddies as he approaches, “What’s up with this fool? Is he sandwich crazy?!?” Later, Brian’s superior in the police force (he’s an undercover cop, naturally) responds to his request for more time with, “You want time? Buy the magazine. We don’t have time.” Ugh.

No, the dialogue doesn’t help this movie at all, nor does Walker, with is super dorky and sports an awful pseudo-‘stache. Vin Diesel, though, isn’t bad. Even when he’s saying ridiculous things (“You ‘had me’? YOU NEVER HAD YOUR CAR!” to which the huge crowd at the illegal street race collectively says “Oooooooh”), he’s better than anyone on-screen. 

You can also watch it for a good laugh or two. I like cheesy action films, but the problem is that this one doesn’t really own the cheesiness. It’s fun in spite of itself, mostly because of the action sequences at the beginning and the end (the crash at the end is great), but it’s not trying to be fun. It’s trying to be cool, which is just kinda sad. Without Diesel, this is drops a full letter grade. Grade: B-

June 18: #20, 2 Fast 2 Furious, #21, The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift, #22, Fast & Furious, #23, Fast Five, #24, Fast & Furious 6

So, the second installment would start one trend that would plague the series and continue another. The trend it started was over-stylized, nonsensical titles that would reach their pinnacle when the fourth film would simply be called Fast & Furious, even though it was the fourth in the series. The trend it continued was featuring a rotating cast of stars that more often than not, aren’t really actors at all. While the awful Ja Rule was confined to a brief appearance in the first, in the second film we get the barely-tolerable Ludacris, as well as R&B singer turned “actor” Tyrese as the co-star. Gone is Vin Diesel, though we still get Paul Walker. Yay?

Brian (Walker) is no longer a cop in 2 Fast, 2 Furious, having completely fucked up his assignment in the first film by letting Dom (Diesel) go. So, of course, he makes the most logical move, which would be street racing illegally for cash. Of course, the writers quickly realize that they need somebody to be undercover, so they have the FBI trap Brian and force him to go undercover again.

So, if you’re keeping score, when you’re inept as an undercover agent and get canned by the police, the FBI instead enlists you to go undercover for them in almost exactly the same capacity that you failed miserably in the first time.

John Singleton directed this, and boy is he slumming it after starting his career with Boyz N The Hood. He flubs the first race pretty badly, as half the time we see close-ups of determined faces, gear shifting (these cars all have 100 gears, apparently), and pedals being slammed to the floor. The other half of the time, the cars are driving in a line, one after another, yet swerving nonsensically. It’s as if Singleton watched the part of a Nascar race where the race hasn’t actually started yet and the drivers are swerving to warm up their tires and thought, “That looks pretty cool! Let’s do that at full speed!”

Oh, and in the same race, the guy who organizes the racing itself has the bridge near the finish line manipulated to become a huge ramp. This pretty much totals one car and leads to another crash, but nobody’s like, “Hey, dick, you just wrecked my car by making me do a forty-foot jump!” 

Later on, the action picks up, including a moment where a car gets pin-balled between the wheels of a speeding semi, then run over. The closing sequences are pretty good, too, including a ridiculous stunt where a car is ramped onto a moving yacht that set the scene for the even more ridiculous stunts to come later in the franchise.

Everything else is pretty bad. The characters are grating, at best. Everybody is a mish-mash of the same persona, a mix between gearhead/urban wanksta/fraternity douche. Tyrese is terrible as Roman Pierce, but he at least gives the film some unintentional humor with a smoldering bromance between himself and Brian. Tyrese, Walker, and Singleton clearly wanted Roman and Brian to appear as “close friends who have issues to work out” and instead land squarely on “supposedly heterosexual guys in denial of the obvious sexual tension between them.” It lends some humor to moments like when Roman chastises Brian for checking out Eva Mendes, who also plays an undercover agent (go figure). “Whatchu checking her out for?!?” he asks, as if it’s crazy for a supposedly straight guy to check out Eva freaking Mendes.

But hey, Eva Mendes! And the action sequences are solid. This one, though, like the first, would have been better if it would have embraced its own cheesiness and owned it, instead of trying to play it straight (pun intended) and failing. Grade: C-

The series goes in a completely different course with The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift. I thought about skipping this one entirely because a) none of the series’ regulars play a major role, b) it’s got freaking Bow Wow in it, c) I thought the “drifting” gimmick was stupid, and d) it’s got freaking Bow Wow in it.

But hey, if you’re going to watch them, why not watch them all? This starts with Lucas Black playing Sean Boswell, a gearhead type who doesn’t fit in with the preppy kids of his school. He flirts with the wrong girl, as all Mysterious New Kids do throughout film history, and ends up in a confrontation with Douchey Football Player. Douchey Football Player throws a baseball through Sean’s rear window, which leads to a near fight until Sean shows that he’s going to fight Douchey Football Player with a fucking wrench, revealing himself to be a douche as well.

So, of course, they race. They do so through an empty housing development, and when DFP refuses to put his $80,000 car on the line, his girlfriend puts herself on the line instead, because apparently women are just prizes to be won and she has no self-worth. During the race, DFP is so incensed at the idea of losing that he tries to ram Sean off the road, and both end up crashing pretty spectacularly. Let’s get this right: you won’t put your $80k car on the line, but wrecking it is no big deal?

Anyway, this all leads to Sean being shipped off to Japan to live with his dad, where he immediately catches the eye of the wrong girl (Neela, played by Nathalie Kelley) there, too. This leads to a rivalry between Sean and the girl’s boyfriend, DK (played by Brian Tee). DK is a nephew of a local Yakuza figure and thinks he’s a little gangster by proxy, and Tee plays him just like the spoiled prick he should be. 

In fact, all of the acting here is done surprisingly well, with Black, Kelley, and even Bow Wow doing commendable jobs with the characters they’re given. Sure, they’re not tremendously well-written characters, but it’s a Fast movie, for God’s sake. In particular, Han (Sung Kang) is a good character as the Mr. Miyagi to Sean’s Daniel-san. 

See, Sean doesn’t know how to drift, and that’s how they race in Tokyo Drift. That leads to all of the racing, fights, and rivalries you would come to expect in the series, and again, it’s all done pretty damn well. Even the one-liners aren’t bad: I was caught off guard when Sean once again got into trouble pursuing Neela, who is Australian, and Han said, “Why can’t you just find a nice Japanese girl like all the other white guys around here?” There’s even a surprise Dom appearance at the end! Grade: B

As mentioned before, the fourth installment is confusingly named Fast & Furious. Why? Because the title is much FASTER without “The”. Also, ampersands are SUPER FAST. Movie audiences can’t be trusted, so even though Tokyo Drift was the best real film in the series yet, producers reacted to slightly disappointing box office performance by bringing back Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, and Michelle Rodriguez for the fourth installment.

Right away, it’s clear they’re not messing around. I take a few notes when I’m going to write a review and in my notebook for the opening of Fast 4, I just wrote, “Holy shit haha.” I’ll be honest with you, a day later, after having seen 1,000 car crashes in less than a 24-hour period, I don’t remember the specifics, but I know that it involves pure stunt craziness. That’s all back, along with plenty of other Fast signatures: Illegal races where scantily-clad models outnumber men 3 to 1! Everyone’s drinking Coronas! Brian (Walker) uses his weak-ass jiu-jitsu again in a fight! It’s like being home again, people. 

The series finally starts to realize it shouldn’t be taking itself seriously here, too. When Dom is asked (by a beautiful woman, of course) whether he prefers cars to women, he answers, “I’m one of those guys who appreciates a fine body regardless of the make.” Ha! I love it. Later on, Dom straight-up murders a dude by running into him with his car, and then simply says, “Pussy”. It’s not exactly Arnold-esque, but it’s amusing(-ly bad) and suits the character.

I realized after watching parts five and six that this one was actually set before Tokyo Drift, which makes it a lot more understandable when a character who is supposed to be dead just pops up out of nowhere. That’s not explained in any explicit way, though, and you just figure they’re completely crapping on the third installment and doing away with the death altogether. 

Things end up going about as you’d expect, until Dom is captured and sentenced to 25-to-life with no chance of parole. What?!? Doesn’t this judge know there are more movies to be made? This sets up a cliffhanger that lets you know the series is far from over and bridges to the fifth installment nicely. At this point, perhaps it’s having watched four of these things in less than 24 hours, but damn it, the series is growing on me, one-note characters and all. Again, great action and the presence of Diesel buoys this one, though it doesn’t represent the series meeting its potential. Not yet. Grade: B-

In Fast Five, the decision to just completely randomize the title (again) is symbolic of a huge shift in how the series is approached. Honestly, Fast Five is a heist move. It’s got fast cars in it, but it’s no longer really about racing, and that’s okay.

Furthermore, Fast Five brings together characters from all four of the previous movies, and I’m not going to lie, I was happy to see all these fuckers again. I know, I KNOW! It sounds crazy. I feel like I’ve developed Stockholm Syndrome after sitting through all of these today. Why do I care about these people? I don’t know, but I do, damn it, I do.

And there’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who has been great in just about anything he’s ever been in. Okay, I haven’t seen Doom, but whatever. He’s a pretty one-dimensional hardass/tough guy type here, but he can play that with ease. He gets your typical badass cop lines, but hits them out of the park with an unusual mix of toughness and charm. There hasn’t been a foil quite like The Rock as Agent Hobbs in this series, even if he isn’t truly a villain, and the confrontations between Hobbs and Dom are great.

Meanwhile, Brian (Paul Walker) has gone rogue, just as any sense of realism has gone rogue within the Fast series. Let’s get you caught up: Brian was a cop in the first film, was fired after letting Dom go, was forced by the FBI to work for them in the second, then hired on as an agent by the fourth, and now he’s on the run as a criminal because once again, he choose his criminal friends over his duties. You’d think the FBI would, I don’t know, conduct extensive background checks and psychological profiles before hiring these guys, wouldn’t you?

Anyway, before you know it, the story is in full swing. More people from the earlier films show up, Dom is rescued from the prison bus (with a spectacular crash; it’s like these people KNOW WHAT I WANT), the guy who played “Bucho” in Desperado is revealed as the bad guy, someone’s pregnant, and we get a three-way hug, even. Roman is back, and I’m even kind of glad to see him (and not just because Tyrese has gotten crazy old, either). Right away, he shoots a jealous glare at Dom, reminding us instantly of the not-so-heterosexual tension between Roman and Brian. Great stuff. Of course, all of this culminates in…wait for it…”ONE LAST JOB”.

That job is the focus of this film, and if you don’t believe it’s a straight-up heist film, consider that when Dom and Brian go to a street race to win a car for the heist, the race isn’t even shown. The heist itself is terrific, too, with plenty of twists and even a pretty ingenious usage of exploding toilets, if you can believe that.  Grade: A-

Finally, we arrive at Fast & Furious 6. I knew I had to see this movie when I saw a CAR DRIVE THROUGH A BURNING PLANE in the trailer, people. This film is what happens when you take your silly action franchise and completely release it from the laws of physics, reality, or what the human body can do- and it’s glorious.

Agent Hobbs (The Rock) is back, and he’s got an offer Dom (Vin Diesel) can’t refuse. One last (LAST) job, and not for money, but to find out why his girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) has been seen alive recently when she has supposedly been dead for some time after a fiery crash.

Before you know it, the crew is assembled again, with Brian (Paul Walker), Han (Sung Kang) Roman (Tyrese), Gisele (Gal Gadot), Tej (Ludacris), and newcomer Riley (Gina Carano) joining as Hobbs’ right-hand (wo)man. I love Carano, by the way, and she’s outstanding in the fight scenes here. She’s passable as a stereotypically-cold agent who is 100% focused on the job at hand, too.

Anyway, in case you weren’t convinced that the Fast series wasn’t taking itself seriously any longer, Letty hasn’t been dead or anything all of this time, she’s just had amnesia. Yes, the oldest plot device of all-time returns and explains it all away. On top of that, she’s running with the villain, Shaw (played just viciously enough by Luke Evans). 

The film leads to many questions, such as, “Why would Dom’s new live-in girlfriend say, ‘Yes, Dom, go put your life on the line AGAIN to find out about your ex that you thought was dead’?”, or “Why would Mia (Jordana Brewster) let Brian run off on this crazy adventure when the two of them just had a baby together and were planning on getting away from such antics?” Finally, you ask, “Do women like that really exist, and if so, where does one meet them?” Hypothetically speaking, of course.

If Fast Five was a heist film, Fast & Furious 6 represents the film just going into straight-forward action mode, without any pretense of being about racing. For the first time I can remember, there are more than a couple of fights in a Fast movie, and they are all creatively choreographed and exciting to watch.

More than anything though, this is fan service at its best. You get the characters that you’ve grown to love, with the actors and actresses reprising their roles with (I hope, anyway) tongues firmly planted in cheek. Also, anything that you find yourself hoping happens in this movie ends up happening. You want to see Hobbs take on the huge bodybuilding type in Shaw’s crew? Done. Want to see people fighting on top of speeding cars like it’s no big deal? No problem! In need of a second round between Riley and Letty? You’ve got it!

Everything you’d expect from a Fast film is here, from Dom spouting pseudo-philosophical one-liners in monotone to an obligatory trip to an illegal street race where apparently every model within 1,000 miles hangs out, complete with short skirts and creepy, low angle butt shots. And to top it all off, there’s a post-credits scene that finally ties the last three films in with Tokyo Drift and makes you really, really want a part seven. 

This is the perfect dumb action movie. I mean, it culminates in about a 15-minute chase scene on a runway, and who gives a shit if the runway would have to be about 23 miles long for it to happen the way it was shown? The impossible has happened, and this series has finally won me over while simultaneously reaching its potential. Grade: A