Movie Review: ‘Fast & Furious 6’

So Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew are back. Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and his crew are back. And some new faces, Hobbs’ partner Riley (Gina Carano) and villain Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) dd to the franchise’s ever-growing roster.

I thought the vast number of characters would be too much of a distraction in the last installment, and, to an extent, it was. But I liked Fast 5, and I’m happy to say that 6 is even better.

The premise is all but unnecessary. Hobbs recruits Toretto to take down Shaw, a gangster/terrorist/arms dealer whose goal is not particularly clear, but then it doesn’t need to be, does it? Shaw’s latest plan is to steal a military whatsit that can cause blackouts, and his gang of thugs, the minute you meet them, seem like the evil twins of Toretto’s — and it’s a credit to the movie’s cleverness that they actually address the parallels and get some great character beats in from Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris Parker), two fellows whose roles in the previous films were to stand around and wait for something to do.