No need for speed

Film: Fast and Furious 6

Director: Justin Lin

Sixth in the series of a franchise that sells thrills, Fast and Furious 6 has a tagline that reads 'All roads lead here'. To an average cinema viewer, that would mean if you haven't watched all the previous editions, you might miss a few finer nuances in the narrative. But that isn't the case with this Justin Lin film. Not only is it alright to have not watched the redundant prequels, it is perfectly fine if you missed this one too.

Nonetheless, the film brings together partners in crime, Dom and Brian (Diesel and Walker), and a few other familiar faces as Hobbs, (Dwayne Johnson) recruits them and a couple of new additions to create a task force for a mission. A criminal mastermind (Luke Evans) is after a computer chip that could render a nation defenceless and Hobbs' team has to stop him. The film then uses tried and tested Hollywood formulas as it gloriously goes from one outrageous action sequence to another.

What puts you off are the seemingly surreal elements in the film. A character, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Manmohan Desai-esquely returns from the dead with no recollection of her past life. In the second half, a sequence where the good guys use a car to anchor a tank and a scene where Vin Diesel does an impossible jump to save his love from falling off a bridge; come really close to reminding you of how a bullet that passed through Mithun's skull cured his brain tumor. The over-sized, testosterone ridden, chauvinist film wreaks with Hollywood's arrogance. The star-studded line up and relentless quest for physical superiority just gets too uninteresting to watch. A few one-liners produce short-lived laughter between scenes that have a lot of cars toppling over and crashing into things.

Even if this is the first film you watch in your life, or the first time you see fast cars in your life, or the first time you see an explosion in your life, you won't like the film. With visual spectacles that don't stun you after a point, with characters that you don't even care for by the end of it and with action that brings nothing exciting to the table, Fast and Furious 6 is not worth the effort nor the money it took to make it. And as if that weren't enough, the film pokes you once again towards the end suggesting at least one more sequel in the future. Until then, drive safe.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Published in DNA (Pune) on May 25, 2013

Real American Sidekick

Fascinating as it was to play with these action figures as a child, and to watch the animated series about them, G I Joe Retaliation, not unlike its prequel, is an underwhelming experience. Everytime you picked up one your action figures and screamed ‘Go Joe!’ before plunging into battle with the Cobras, you probably acted out a better narrative than this Jon M Chu film.

In this sequel, which has a severely unconnected time lapse with the previous film, the G I Joes are not only fighting the Cobras, but are also fighting the forces within their own system and the Government. A clinical strike at one of the outstation bases wipes out most of their soldiers and with a handful of them left, they find themselves facing a nemesis that has threatened their very existence. Led by Roadblock (Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson), the Joes re-assemble the survivors to re-build and retaliate. With Flint, Lady Jaye and Snake Eyes on his flank, Roadblock reaches out to General Joe (Bruce Willis) to come out of retirement and help them restore order.

An ill-constructed series of explosions and megalomaniac threats that lack dramatic juice, the screenwriters seem to have adopted the screenplay by observing a pretty dull kid for two hours with his action figures. With high-end graphics at their disposal, the finished product seems to lack the awe that makes action films a little more spectacular. The dialogues, which usually help the caricatures create a place in the heart of the viewers, aren’t up to the mark either. Furthermore, in a sequence where Snake Eyes captures Storm Shadow from a hilly terrain in the Himalayas, the filmmaker has pulled off something that wasn’t considered possible. He has made Ninjas look lame.

The Rock (Dwayne Johnson), who plays the protagonist Roadblock (a word that truly describes what the writers of this film hit), just isn’t dynamic enough to be a child’s hero. Bruce Willis, whose character is asked to come out of retirement, is a vague reminder of an action hero that once was; and one that shouldn’t be asked to come out of retirement, at that. Lady Jaye, played by Adrianne Palicki looks nothing like her action figure and hampers the character’s image with her feminine overtone.

In conclusion, after all the fans of this franchise, who will go into cinema hall humming ‘Real American Hero, It’s G I Joe!’ have been thoroughly bored; and after you have given up on even trying to pretend to like it; you can go home, pull out the box of your old toys and enact a better sequence than the unimaginative disappointment that is G I Joe Retaliation.

Rating - 2 out of 5