There’s an amusing disclaimer in the credits for Fast & Furious 6, along the lines that the stunts in the film are dangerous and shouldn’t be tried at home. Even the most fanatical petrol-head might struggle to recreate the bit where Vin Diesel shoots out through the nose-cone of a burning cargo plane, so the advice can only prompt guffaws.
In its way, though, this absurdity demonstrates just how far the series has come – from The Fast and The Furious, a $38m-budgeted, definite-article-encumbered 2001 B movie about devil-may-care street racers, to a bulky, galumphing, preposterously outsized all-action franchise with the steroid quotient of the average wrestling convention.
There’s an impressive commitment to male-pattern baldness among the key cast – not only do Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson square off again like sizzling 6ft bratwursts, but an end-credits kicker reveals yet another follically-untroubled action star is to be added to the mix next time. Hair is for girls. Well, girls and Paul Walker.
Justin Lin has now directed four of these, and has a flair for digital showmanship which comes alive twice in lavish set-pieces – first on a suspended stretch of highway in the Canary Islands, then on that plane, which gathers speed for 15 minutes, on what has to be the world’s longest runway, while about a dozen good guys try to stop it in their hot-rods.
