Furious 7 (2015)

Make no mistake about it, Furious 7 is a silly-dumb-bad movie. The story is a mess, the dialog is a joke and the acting made me cringe at times. Is it entertaining though? Yes!

I can't fault a movie whose only goal is to entertain with action scenes. It achieves exactly what it sets out to do. This isn't Oscar bait here. You got a little bit of everything: car chases, karate, lots of 'splosions. They even brought in Ronda Rousey and Tony Jaa to add some additional fight cred. The action is over-the-top ridiculous, and I even laughed more than a few times at the implausibility of it. Doesn't mean it wasn't fun to watch though.

Ugh, the dialog though. So many terrible ways to say they are going to kick someone's ass. Here's a fun drinking game, do a shot everytime someone says "family". You'll die from alcohol poisoning about halfway through. Want a real challenge? Drink any time you notice obvious product placement. The conversation highlight to me was Kurt Russell discussing the merits of belgian beer and trying to switch Vin Diesel to switch from Corona. I don't even like belgian beer all that much, but anything to get people to stop drinking Corona. At least there's that.

For those curious, they do handle Paul Walker's death in a nice way. I won't spoil it, but fans of his (which I have to admit, I never really was one) should feel good about it.

My main disappointment is that The Rock isn't in it that much. Looks like he was on set long enough to get a pump on and his supply of UnderArmor shirts. That's gotta be in his contract or something.

Look, if you aren't already a fan, there's nothing here that's going to make you one. If you've enjoyed the series, especially 5 and 6, then this is just more of it. I'd say 5 and 6 were probably better though.

Bring on Furious 8! Or will they shorten it even further to just 8? F&F8 will be in theaters May 2017.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Riddick (2013)

I used to attempt a Vin Diesel impression, but it sounded like a mix of Sylvester Stallone with a little bit of Elmer Fudd.  "You'wr nawt afwaid of duh dahk, are you?  Huh huh huh.  Huh huh huh."

Even though it's been almost ten years since The Chronicles of Riddick, Vin Diesel fought pretty hard to make another.  First, he worked out a deal with Universal to get the rights to Riddick for himself.  He owns the character now.  Then, he was so determined to get a film made that he leveraged his house in order to get it done.  I have to credit Diesel for taking the risk.  I hope it works out for him.

The good news is that Riddick is a significant improvement over Chronicles, and it brings back the style and formula for what made Pitch Black a popular film.  It's broken up into three distinct acts that feel like several mini-stories.  The first act is pretty kick ass and was my favorite part of the film.  It takes the time to catch us up with what happened to Riddick after the events of Chronicles.  There's even a cameo from Karl Urban.  After an attempt to find his home planet, he's betrayed by the Necromongers and left for dead on a hostile planet.  Horribly injured, Riddick nurses himself back to health while fighting off the planet's various creatures.  Outside of some narration from Riddick, there's a minimum of dialog.  It's like a sci-fi Rambo survival story.  Also, a lot of work went into the look of the planet and creatures.  If the whole movie had been like this, I think I would have been happy.

Eventually, Riddick knows he's going to have to get off planet.  He finds an old outpost and activates a beacon.  Two groups of bounty hunters arrive to bring him in.  The first group, led by a man named Santana (Jordi Mollà), is there to collect the bounty.  Satana is kind of a douche, so you know things probably wont work out well for him.  The second group, led by Boss Johns (Matt Nable), is after Riddick for a different reason, and has a tie to Riddick's past and the events of Pitch Black.  Riddick isn't going to make it easy for them, staying in hiding and picking off the mercs, while giving them the option of leaving him a ship or he'll kill them all.  The dialog during this part varies from cheesy, eye-rollingly-awful, to funny, to rapey when directed towards Dahl, played by Katee Sackhoff, who's basically doing Starbuck again, which is fine by me.

Finally, the third act is basically Pitch Black 2 where monsters start attacking, and Riddick seems to be the most effective guy at killing them.  He's been through all this before.

Another thing Vin Diesel did was fight for an R rating and that's another area where the film worked.  Sure there's gratuitous nudity, thank you again Katie Sackhoff, but the rating allowed them to not pull any punches.  There are some great and inventive kills as Riddick picks off some of the bounty hunters that rival any horror film.  I mentioned the dialog earlier, but it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a room full of egos and testosterone, meaning lots of f-bombs.  I also liked that they didn't go out of their way to make Riddick a good guy.  He's a killer and the very definition of an anti-hero.  I think that got lost in the last film and a weaker rating wouldn't have helped convey that here.

The effects were very good in parts, and very bad in others.  They seemed a few years behind, but considering Riddick had a modest budget for a sci-fi movie, they did a decent job.  Overall, I have to credit writer/director David Twohy for getting the most out of the budget and giving us some entertaining action.  I enjoyed the pace of the film and the overall style.  However, I have to point out that once again one of the climatic scenes featured the same poorly edited fighting that's been plaguing recent films.  This one was even a little more disappointing considering it featured Diesel and Dave Bautista, who are two guys you want to see duke it out and you know can handle the physicality.  It's a missed opportunity to give us something memorable, and instead it's just another run-of-the-mill fight scene.

Riddick is a return to the style and roots of what made people like the character in the first place.  If you were a fan of Pitch Black, but disappointed by Chronicles, then you should be pleased with Riddick.  The dialog and special effects can be a little rough in parts, but overall it's an entertaining film and a late-Summer bright spot in what's been a somewhat disappointing movie season.  I definitely recommend it as a matinee.

3 out of 5 (Death Stars)

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

They're still making Fast & Furious movies?

I complained in my The Hangover Part III review that The Hangover franchise was a good movie where they forced two sequels of descending quality, because they didn't know where to take the characters or the story.  The Fast & Furious franchise seemed to be following a similar path of each sequel being worse than the original, but at some point after the fourth, it's as if they all sat down and said, "You know what?  Let's just make these movies as over-the-top as we can!"  It seems to have worked as many consider Fast Five to be the most entertaining of the series, and now we have Fast & Furious 6, which continues the trend.

This is one of those testosterone-fueled action films that just gets your adrenaline going.  I left the theater well after 1 a.m. and all I wanted to do was go lift weights and drive my car home really fast, and I drive an old Honda.

You want car chases?  They got car cases!  You want gunfights?  They got gunfights!  You say you don't like gunfights, but want brutal fist fights?  Girl fights?  There's lots of that!  Oh, want a tank?  There's even a tank!  You want sophisticated?  Go look for that somewhere else, nerd!

The plot is pretty ridiculous, but this isn't a movie you're watching for it's nuanced and solid plot.  Even the film seems to be saying, "Whatever, just go with it."  An ex-British Special Forces soldier Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) has committed a series of heists and the DSS needs help catching him.  Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) works a deal with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew.  Help him bring Shaw in, and it's full pardons for the team.  To stir the pot even more, Hobbs reveals that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), who's been presumed dead (since Fast 4), is working with Shaw.  Dom's in no matter what now, as he just wants to find out what happened to Letty.

From that point, it is just an orgy of car chases and fighting.  Almost all of it is ridiculous, and the rational side of your brain can't help but watch some of these sequences and wonder how they are always escaping serious bodily harm, or even death, with each crash or bone-crushing hit.  Then again, it just so fun to watch that you really don't care that much of it doesn't obey the laws of physics.  Some of the scenes are so crazy that it becomes cartoonish.  Cars get flattened, yet there's no blood or bodies even though you didn't see anyone get out of the car.  You can actually tell what's going on in these scenes though.  They actually trusted that their action sequences would entertain without having to distract the audience with weird camera movements, quick cuts or shaky cam.  My eyes were so glued to the screen during some of these scenes that they would keep drying out (I'm a contacts wearer) from lack of blinking, and I would always look for an opportunity to put eye drops in.

Another thing that impressed me was that the film managed to avoid looking fake despite the craziness of some of the action scenes.  I don't know how much CG was used, but it sure seemed like a lot of it was practical.  In some ways this felt very old-school.  Even most of the cars used were older, muscle cars.

There are a few lulls here and there, mainly when there's any kind of dialog or exposition in between action scenes.  However, much of this is made bearable by the surprisingly humorous dialog.  There's good chemistry within the group, and you get that feeling that these guys are really friends just ripping on each other.

Overall, I really enjoyed the cast.  This is a group not exactly known for their acting chops, but for the type of film Fast & Furious 6 is, there's nothing wrong with them, and they all looked like they were having fun.  I have to give special notice to Gina Carano, who plays Hobbs partner, and has many of the best fighting scenes in the film.  I think at this point any film that features women fighting must star Gina Carano.  This should be enacted into law.  Also, I could have used a little more Dwayne Johnson.  He only pops up from time to time, but maybe they had to limit his time on film when they'd run out of baby oil or arm butter.  Jeez he's a beast of a man!

Director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan, who've been collaborating on the series since Tokyo Drift, really seemed to have hit their stride with the series, and turned it into something that is simple, audience- pleasing, Summer fun.  They even managed to tie up the continuity with Tokyo Drift really well (note: for those that aren't aware, despite Tokyo Drift being the third film in the series, chronologically it takes place after Fast Six).

Oh, and there's a really great surprise as the credits roll.  You don't need to stay at the very end, but there's a scene during the credits that might be one of the best sequel teases I've ever seen.

If you want some crazy, balls-to-the-wall action and don't want to have to think too much, Fast & Furious 6 is for you.  It's not going to win any Oscars, and sure it's a little dumb, but it's the type of film that fits in just fine during the Summer blockbuster season.  It really does have a little bit of everything for action lovers and I think it's a fun way to spend a few hours.  I thought it was a blast to watch, and definitely worth a matinee.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars