Furious 6

Get out your fast cars and faster cars, we're reviewing Furious 6!

Is it just me or is Vin Diesel finally starting to look old? How long before he's too old for this shit?

An expert team of thieves starts stealing high-value parts with cars. Agent Hobbs (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) calls on a past team of criminals to help, including Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker). The only reason Dom agrees is that Hobbs has pictures of Dom's supposedly dead girlfriend, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), working for the bad guys!

I was never big into driving games, but ever since playing Fast Five I'd been looking forward to the next game in the Fast & Furious series almost as much as the next Bioshock game. And now that it's finally here, oh geez is it fun. A game like this you play for the big action sequences, and Furious 6 does not disappoint! One level has you as the thieves driving these modded race cars with wedges and flipping over on-coming police cars, and in another one you take on a tank boss in oncoming traffic over a bridge! It's almost as good as the Saint's Row series. It is incredibly crazy and physics-breaking and you can't not love the ridiculousness of it. I mean, could “The Rock” REALLY jump off a moving truck from a bridge onto speeding race-car? Probably not, but it's an incredibly fun quicktime event! Reminds me a lot of Uncharted 2…  

All movies need more
Michelle Rodriguez.

I was delightfully surprised at the shooting and fighting dynamics. (Not to mention the shooting while driving and jumping from car to car) There's a level where Gina Carano grapples with Michelle Rodriguez in a subway that's as challenging as it is fun, and a co-op level with two guys taking on an expert martial artist mini-boss. You can tell they really trained with pros and animated the combos well because Carano's moves are incredible. They're hard to pull off at first but when finally get the hang of flipping around a guy to knock him on his ass, it's very satisfying. 

I just wish the cut-scenes weren't so damn long. Get to the gameplay already, right? The story isn't bad – it’s basically that episode of Power Rangers where they have to fight evil versions of themselves. (No, don't ask which series. There's one in every series) I'm just surprised there's not as much bromance between Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. Usually there's more bromance than Army of Two and all the Call of Duty games COMBINED. I was at least hoping for some Rock/Diesel Baldy Bromance©. All we get is some bromance between Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez. What do you call a bromance between a guy and a girl? A girlmance? No, that's not right. It's especially apparent in the level where you seduce her with racing, because, I mean, that's what the gameplay is. What are they going to do, stick a dating sim in there too? 

Gina Carano is a BAMF and should be some sort
of hero. Wouldn't you say she's WONDERful?

I don't know what Vin Deisel's voice actor was thinking, but he's the new Sylvester Stallone as "grizzled, mumbly guy you can't understand." Every one of his lines was low and mumbled. "Mrrmrmr family mrmrmr fast cars." Though I'm sure I didn't miss anything important. Also, can we give major points of diversity for having TWO black guys on a single team – neither of which died? And also lots of women doing badass things? Women beating the snot out of each other in a super brutal way counts as passing the Bechdel test, right? 

Oh yeah, the story. Bad guys are trying to steal a thing that'll make a really bad thing and you have to stop them from stealing the thing. It's not that original, but what were you expecting from an action videogame? They can't all be Bioshock. At least the gameplay is fun and the action is explodey. And the soundtrack's pretty good too! Some rap and pop and techno but all very catchy and upbeat that gets you pumped while playing. 

The writing I wouldn't say is good, but it's fun. Especially in the cut-scenes, the characters have fun with each other. There's a lot of bro stuff about family and whatnot, but there's also a lot of silly stuff and them ragging on each other.

I know a lot of people are going to write off Furious 6 because it's a "dumb action game" and "it doesn't have great writing" and "the story is stupid and no one cares" and also "dumb dumb dumby dumb". Well yeah! It's not the smartest. It's not Braid. But it is fun! And more than that, it's silly well-done fun. There's an art to action and this gets a pass doing dumb well. It doesn't care, it just is. You could do a hell of a lot worse than this which lets you drive and shoot and fight and- what?

What do you mean it's not a videogame?

I guess this is now the Rock's "police beard"?

THE GOOD: Great action scenes, cars, explosions, shootouts, Michelle Rodriguez, Gina Carano, fun dialogue. 

THE BAD: Not the smartest, not great story, Diesel can be hard to here.

THE VERDICT: $$$$ Go see it! It's a big bunch of dumb fun and if it WERE a videogame, you wouldn't care how dumb a story it is or how dopey its characters are because of how fun the gameplay is and how crazy the action can be. Also, stay through the credits. 

MOVIES LIKE IT: Fast Five, Death Race, Machete, Pain and Gain, Saints Row series

ONE-SCENE METAPHOR: There's a level where you sneak into prison just to get some info from a boss from another game and then you get out with no problem and OH WHOOPS I'M DOING IT AGAIN Seriously someone PLEAAAASE make this into a videogame!