CS Film Club II

Get ready for the sequel.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/a-simple-favor-2-anna-kendrick-blake-lively-paul-feig-1235860967/

Fast & Furious 6

The first thing I do when Dracula assigns me my annual Fast and Furious movie is to go back and re-read my previous Fast and Furious reviews.  It's been 11 months since I watched Fast 5 and considering how flashy but surface level these movies are it's easy for events to blend in or be forgotten completely.  In the case of Fast and Furious 6 the re-reads served me well as I more or less forgot where we left off after Fast 5.  It doesn't really matter though because everyone gets back together to 'do the impossible' because, after all, they're family.

Alright, Fast and Furious 6.  Where to begin?  We open with the sound of car engines over black which I'm pretty sure is how all of these movies open.  You instantly cut to Brian and Dom racing on a stretch of cliff overlooking the ocean very reminiscent of the Quantum of Solace opening..  But alas, we aren't watching some street race or master heist.  They're speeding so Brian can see the birth of his son.  Before Brian runs in though Dom calls out to him and gives him one harsh reminder, 'our old life is DONE.'   We see the opening credits that are just clips of the first 5 movies and also features Michelle Rodriguez's name in the cast.  So much for that reveal.  We quickly cut to Moscow where we view the aftermath of an attack on a convoy.  Enter The Rock and Gina Carano to assess the damage and also where he needlessly repeats her credentials for us that he 'read in her file' just so we know how good she is.  They hear that a suspect has been caught and being held at Interpol so we cut to a building with a sign that says 'INTERPOL' while the text on screen tells us it's 'Interpol Headquarters' which got a good laugh out of me.  This is all within the first 3 minutes.

The main crux of the movie is that Hobbs is after a thief named Shaw but more importantly, Michelle Rodriguez's Letty is on Shaw's team.  Frankly after a half dozen movies I forgot how she factored into everything or why she was so important.  So she was 'killed' in a previous movie, fine.  But that was revealed in #4, right?  Dom had a cameo in 3, wasn't in 2 so that means the last time we saw both of them on screen was 5 movies ago.  She's still an ace behind the wheel and can fix up cars but unfortunately she has complete amnesia when it comes to all things 'family' so the first time Dom sees her she shoots him in the shoulder.  It's okay though, in true Hollywood Fashion he fixes himself up with some tweezers and a small bandage so he's good as new.  In fact Letty is so hardcore she's able to talk down the one of the heavys on her team with lines like 'Aren't you team muscle? Don't make me come over there and make you team pussy.'  That's an actual, verbatim line in the movie, I love it.  Anyways, Dom and Brian and Hobbs stop Shaw and Letty comes back even though she has amnesia and it all ends with a barbeque.

As much fun as it is picking apart another Fast and Furious movie, it's definitely a backwards step for the franchise.  Not because it's dumb or doesn't make sense, although those are also factors, but it just doesn't add anything to the franchise.  It's clearly operating at a lower level (I would say lower gear but I'm sure I've used that pun already in an earlier review) than the previous movie in terms of spectacle and it's also much dumber in terms of story, twists and comprehension.  Gina Carano's character actually being a bad guy isn't only silly, why would there be a big fight between her and Letty in the first place?  How did she not know she was part of this team?  It's a creative decision that can only be explained by writers saying 'hopefully the audience doesn't notice.'  The same goes for the climax on a runway that's apparently 150 miles long because the entire thing involves a plane and multiple cars speeding in an endlessly straight line.  It's not very exciting, it doesn't offer anything we haven't seen already and I don't know what it really accomplished other than shoehorning Michelle Rodriguez back into the franchise.  It's just hard to care, and equally easy to forget over the course of a year between viewings, because the characters are so bland and are portrayed by terrible actors.  Gina Carano, Gal Gadot, Vin Diesel, they're all so wooden and flat and everything is rehearsed.  I guess it might get some credit for needlessly killing off Gadot but I suspect that she'll probably be back given that this is one of those franchises where nobody stays dead, especially an actress whose star power only went up after this movie was released.  Again and as always, was this a silly, fun movie?  Sure, it passed the time.  It's a step in the wrong direction though and I can all but guarantee I'll need a Wikipedia refresher on this movie before I sit down to was Furious 7 in 2025.

C+ so says Doomsday

In

PhantomKnight and I were ready like 2 months ago.

Then you're both going on the list.

I'm in. I'll get to Neverending's recommendation eventually.

Hell yeah.

PK, I didn't forget that you still haven't seen Once Upon A Time In The West. I'll give you that and a couple other essentials just to give some amount of options although I want to pull you towards OUATITW.

Once Upon A Time In The West
Throne Of Blood
Harakiri (1962)

Doomsday


MEAN GIRLS (2024) on Paramount+





LISA FRANKENSTEIN on Peacock





ROAD HOUSE (2024) on Amazon Prime





LEO on Netflix





WONKA on Max