It took six tries but they have finally made a great Fast and Furious movie. I seriously think that the problem was that they never had a great villain before. The first one had a Romeo/Juliet kind of bromance vibe where Dom really wanted to hate Brian but just couldn't quit him. The second one was totally forgettable, the third was a hot mess, and the fourth got back to the bromance. Fast Five took some steps in the right direction with the Brazilian crime lord but he was barely in the movie at all. Not until this sixth one have they had a guy who represents an actual threat.Dom (Vin Diesel) and Elena (Elsa Pataky) are living the good life in a non-extradition country when Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) comes calling. He needs Dom's team to take down a group of international thieves led by former SAS soldier Shaw (Luke Evans) and has the perfect bait to ensure their compliance: Shaw's team includes Dom's suddenly not dead girlfriend, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). Obviously, Dom can't just let that go and calls the whole car family for an emergency meeting. However, Shaw proves to be more ruthless and quite a bit smarter than their usual foes.
Luke Evans isn't exactly nuanced here but he's credible enough in his screentime, particularly in his heart-to-heart with Letty. The only real anchor weighing down the performances is Gina Carano. Thank God she barely has any dialogue because her delivery is horribly wooden. Even something as simple as a smile looks like she was reading her script in her head --"Ok, Luke has a line, camera will pan, and then cue smile." Michelle Rodriguez doesn't exactly emote but she looks like fucking Ingrid Bergman by comparison.
I can't believe I'm saying this, given how the franchise started out, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing the 7th one.
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