Take Fast 5 and add back in a ton more driving and you have a near perfect experience of completely ridiculous action that makes no sense whatsoever but is incredibly fun and intoxicatingly exciting.

Following the birth of Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia’s (Jordana Brewster) baby, they, along with Dom (Vin Diesel) decide it is time to leave their chaotic lives of crime behind and settle down. That changes pretty quickly when Dom is tracked down by Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) who wants Dom to assemble his team to help stop a group of vehicular terrorists led by Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). Dom turns Hobbs down until Hobbs shows him a picture of Dom’s lost love Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), alive and well running with Shaw’s crew. Hobbs puts the team back together, including Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges), Han (Sung Kang) and Giselle (Gal Gadot). With Riley (Gina Carano) joining Hobbs on the federal agent side, the team set out to stop Shaw from assembling a weapon capable of massive destruction.

This movie is absolutely crazy. Like previous installments, particularly Fast Five, reality, physics, common sense and logic check out here in favor of over the top action and bombast. If you were to look at it from a story perspective or in terms of objective reality then it would be awful. Taken as it is intended, as a piece of pure unadulterated action, it is absolutely amazing. If you are going here looking for high cinema or something uplifting and enlightening then you must have never seen any of the previous movies or any shred of promotional material for this one.

I really wish that I understood better how this film series manages to tap into that place of my brain that makes me think it is awesome instead of absolutely worthless and stupid but this one really finds the sweet spot. I think that it has to do with how completely the movie embraces what it is and makes no apologies for it but also manages to make the stupid things it offers cool. This has a fair amount to do with the performances of the actors which will win no awards but there is no winking at the audience to let them know they are in on the joke, they play their parts seriously and will all the earnestness that entails. Of course, all the real talk about family and togetherness would come off way cheesier if there weren’t an abundance of crazy action to bolster it.

The dialogue in the above sequences with all the family talk is absolutely asinine. Characters use exposition as conversational dialogue and the writing, like in the previous installment, only gives characters lines that will fit well in soundbites and trailers. It is overly macho and ridiculous but it fits the rest of the material in such a way that it compliments the film as opposed to detracting from it. When you take the fact that the dialogue is so bad it is hilarious you will find a whole other layer of enjoyment from it.

It isn’t all backhanded compliments here though, there are a lot of genuinely funny moments here mostly courtesy of Tyrese and Ludacris riffing on each other. These two guys together are magical and are worth way more than the two clowns from Fast Five who weren’t included this time around. I could watch a movie of just these two without the driving and heists and whatnot but here they really elevate every scene they are in. Likewise, the growing love story between Han and Giselle is compelling because I found myself actually caring about these characters for some reason that science cannot likely explain.

The action is every bit over the top and insane as in previous installments but where Fast Five largely eschewed the driving for more physical based action, Furious 6 brings the series back around to driving and offers us some really fun and bat shit nuts driving sequences that do not disappoint. That isn’t to say that this installment skimps on other action though as the hand to hand sequences are equally crazy. If Haywire misused Gina Carano then Furious 6 used her perfectly. We get not one but two balls out martial arts sequences with her that are enormously satisfying. Most of the other cast get to shine in action sequences as well and just when you think it can’t get any bigger or any more ridiculous the movie gives reality the finger and ups the ante that much more.

Furious 6 is pretty dense in terms of series continuity as well. It ties most of the various and sundry strands from previous films together and offers a pretty deep dive into series lore for people who are interested in such a thing. In other series, this would be frustrating and confusing for new comers but here it doesn’t matter all that much. The action scenes are so well done that the story is really just an excuse to tie them together. If you are a fan of the series and care about the story, then there is a fair amount of deep diving into the series mythology.  It is all nonsense mind you but it is still deep in the lore.

Conclusion [9.0 out of 10]

Look, this movie is as dumb as is humanly possible but it is also about as fun as humanly possible. It is the perfect summer popcorn movie where you can go and shut your brain down and just enjoy a bunch of muscle bound dudes and hot girls all in skimpy clothing doing a bunch of crazy shit in as crazy a way as possible. This is not for everyone for sure but if you are in the target audience it is 100% awesome. I actively cannot wait for the 7th installment which is set up in a post credits sequence so awesome that I want to fast forward a couple of years and see it now. I can say without any hint of embarrassment that I love this series for all the things that make people roll their eyes about it but also for all the stuff it does so intentionally well. If you like this kind of material, you need to see this now and see it in the theater where it is huge and loud and with a group of people ready to cheer, laugh and groan along with you.