FAST & FURIOUS 6 (2013)

If 5 was where the FF series transitioned from street racing film to high-speed heist caper, then 6 is where it transitioned from racing heist series into racing heist superhero series. Don’t believe me? At one point in the film, one of our rugged heroes launches himself through the air to catch a person falling off a bridge and then uses a car to break his fall. And this is shortly after being shot in the shoulder and pulling the bullet out himself. So…what does all of that mean? It means it’s fucking awesome, that’s what! Logic and reality can go straight out the window. I just want to be entertained.

After making all those duckets from part 4, the team is sitting pretty. Living the good life, but then Agent Hobbs takes time from trying to break the world record for "World’s Tightest Shirt" to inform Torreto that Litty is still alive. Who? Yeah, I forgot too, but she’s the girl from the first movie who wore the giant shoes and snared a lot. Grrrr! Anyway, it appears that Litty has convenient movie amnesia and now works as a driver for a bad guy in Europe. She’s such an invaluable driver, in fact, that even after her boss finds out that she used to be Torreto’s girlfriend…he keeps her on the team! I’m sure that will work out well for him. It doesn’t.

Fast pace; glorification of police brutality; multiple pretty locations (Spain, England, Scotland, Los Angeles); too many action scenes shot at night; Luke Evans as the new bad guy (I really liked him in The Alienist and The Pembrokeshire Murders, but he didn’t have much stage presence here); the longest airport runway in movie history; Kim Kold grossly underused…he should have be in way more scenes; Ludacris with a ludicrous amount of computer monitors; men and women all politely fist-fighting within their preferred sexual classifications; Dwayne Johnson still around (thankfully), but his character doesn’t progress at all…in fact, he makes multiple bad decisions and his overall character grew more two-dimensional in this installment; the subject of innocent people dying and getting injured during the car chases was brought up, but a lot of innocent people were still obviously killed in this story; cool fight scenes that were weakened by having the camera too close to the action; lots of wonderfully cheesy dialogue; breaking a thousand laws and then praying before eating; Han and Gisele still madly in love despite never doing more than just looking at each other with zero on-screen chemistry; people wrecking cars in all kinds of violent and horrible ways and never getting injured; multiple chances to take out the bad guy; the verbal sparring between Roman and Tej getting stale; pointless snobby auctioneer scenes that added nothing to the story and should have been cut; zero uses (that I noticed) of the word “busta”; some truly bizarre efforts to make Dwayne Johnson appear shorter than he really is; a completely overly complicated (aka amusing) hacking device that has to be shot out of a gun to then be used to hack a car via a tablet, causing it to wreck…if you can shoot the vehicle to implant the device, then why not just shoot it with an explosive?

Overall, while I did enjoy the film, I still think it was weaker and less focused than 5. Also, if some of those dark nighttime action scenes had been in the daytime, I would have liked the film better. Still, it’s 100% worth watching for fans of the series.  It's been a lot of fun seeing how the series evolves throughout the years.  I'm hoping for a Fast and Furious / Saw crossover next!

Part 1 - The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Part 2 - 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Part 3 - The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Part 4 - Fast & Furious (2009)
Part 5 - Fast Five (2011)
Part 7 - Furious 7 (2015)
Part 8 - The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Spin-off 1 - Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Part 9 - F9 (2021)
Part 10 - Fast X (2023)

THE MEG (2018)

Scientist discover that the ocean has a basement.  While exploring this newfound area, they (being idiots) accidentally release two megalodon sharks.  One is big as fuck and the other one is really big as fuck.  Unfortunately, these two sharks don't bring along any good writers, because THE MEG, while it sounds exciting, is completely soulless.  After the sharks escape, instead of just wandering off into the ocean to never be seen again, they attack the underwater research facility where the scientist hang out.  That's not as exciting as it sounds, but it does give the scientists and friends reason to chase the sharks around for the rest of the movie.

I love killer animal movies.  Successful ones have strong character development capped off by an awesome second half full of the monster(s) wrecking shit non-stop.  (Or...the movie is just so bad and/or insane that you can't help but enjoy it.)  None of that happens in THE MEG.  Right from the start, the characters are all very bland and forgettable.  The shark itself looks cool, but it never goes crazy and starts ripping people apart.  The majority of the action is simply the sharks eating other animals with only the occasional human getting nibbled offscreen.  It's weak as hell.

That said, I was mildly entertained.  The movie itself looks nice and the pace moves along quickly enough to keep you from getting too bored, but with zero point zero percent chance of something wild or unexpecting happening, my mind did start to drift.  Like...I still don't understand why there hasn't been a killer animal movie where the critters attack a nudist colony!  Preferably it will be set in the 1980's and the critters main attack happens during the final round of an all-nude breakdancing contest.

Low body count, zero nudity, zero tension, boring action scenes, unrealistic dialogue, an annoying little kid that knows everything (vomit!), Jason Statham as "Jason Statham versus a giant shark", Rainn Wilson being 100% forgettable, Robert Taylor's acting talent wasted, absolutely zero concern for decompression, disappointing ending.

Not the worst giant killer animal movie ever (and I'm 100% positive that I'll end up watching the sequels), but for a sanitized, inoffensive time-waster it's not too bad.

[Update 08/25/2023: Saw Meg 2 or whatever it's called in the theater and it was fun. I'll post a new review for it once I get a blu-ray to take screenshots from.]