SYNOPSIS: Since Dom (Diesel) and Brian’s (Walker) Rio heist toppled a kingpin’s empire and left their crew with $100 million, our heroes have scattered across the globe. But their inability to return home and living forever on the lam have left their lives incomplete. 

Meanwhile, Hobbs (Johnson) has been tracking an organization of lethally skilled mercenary drivers across 12 countries, whose mastermind (Evans) is aided by a ruthless second-in-command revealed to be the love Dom thought was dead, Letty (Rodriguez). The only way to stop the criminal outfit is to outmatch them at street level, so Hobbs asks Dom to assemble his elite team in London. Payment? Full pardons for all of them so they can return home and make their families whole again. 

REVIEW: Who knew? Who knew that a series that seemed ‘fly-by-night’ and disposable, by the third installation, could find itself in to its sixth release and still setting the tone for what a bona fide, amazing and relevant blockbuster should look and feel like? Well, if you asked me, it’s a no-brainer. With elements of muscle car action, brawn, brain and comedic action, coupled with lots of super hot ‘chicks-on-chicks’ action (ok, not that type of action, but more of the female MMA-type action), in some exotic locales, then I would say we have a recipe for longevity in the film industry. Kinda’ like that British-export series we have all come to know as “Bond, James Bond!” Needless to say, this franchise is evolving to stay relevant. They started with a “pimp-my-ride” type of appeal, then moved on to a racing phenomena, called drifting (this was the in-thing for a while), then on to the tried and true cops and robbers/drug dealers, genre. Now in 2013, we have moved on to international conspiracies and terror plots (which is very relevant, I might add) and teeters on the edge of infringing on triple “X,” the Vin Diesel original. That evolutionary style of film making hasn’t let them stray too far from what they know as their strengths. They still rely on big ‘smash-em-up’ car chases, lots of hand-to-hand close-quarters combat, and its characters' ‘go big or go home’ enthusiasm for all of the above. Great recipe for continued growth, I would say.

As I’ve alluded to in a previous review, Duane “The Rock” Johnson (a recent addition to the F&F series) is Mr. “Save-our-franchise.” He now seems indispensable at this point, not only to this series, but to the industry on a whole. His notoriety, beginning with WWE, seems to encapsulate the meaning of the word “franchise” and any time a struggling series needs saving, he seems to be the right man for the job. His superior athleticism for action/fight scenes really brings the maximum carnage here. I, for one, was quite taken back by the amount of muscle-bound fight scenes that exist in this latest release. It seems like the movie is littered with bodybuilders starting with Vin Diesel, himself.

Overall, this latest script by Chris Morgan (Wanted, 2008) is crammed with lots of twists and turns (no pun intended). It, as expected, is filled with loads of bone crushing fight scenes, lots of out of this world stunts (like no other in recent times) and tons of adrenaline-fueled fight scenes. It is totally action, with sprinkles of comedy and a dash of romance (believe it or not!!!) from start to finish. I definitely recommend this one for the action-junkies and Fast and Furious fans alike. It definitely deserves four and a half out of five stars for delivering an abundance of cool action, as expected.

Review By Movi-Man Stan 

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