There’s this loud-mouth kid fresh out of college within earshot of my desk who drops hoity-toity nuggets like, “There’s no movie with The Rock in it worth seeing” or “You guys should really be watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It’s awesome TV.” Oh, how wrong you are, young sir.

We won’t talk more about hockey (no one else is). Instead, let’s focus on the sixth film in the re-tuned Fast & Furious series, called Furious 6 if you trust the title card. Like its predecessor, Fast Five — an Ocean’s 11 heist flick with a Blues Brothers-like adherence to physics — the underground street race culture has been traded in for a new model, a high-octane game of cat and mouse. 

This go round, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his familial ensemble of millionaire motorhead misfits are on the good side of the law. After being deputized by Hobbs (played triumphantly once more by gym enthusiast Mr. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), they’re tasked with tracking down their shadows selves — a rival gang of expert wheelmen out to build some sort of EMP (I think... it doesn’t really matter) and figure out why Toretto’s dead girlfriend, Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), ain’t as dead as she used to be.

What follows is an orgy of car stunts and fist fights. It’s an aerial ballet of crashing, crumbling cars raining glass and metal, featuring a trio of red, white and blue American muscle cars facing off against a tank, one of the more brutal on-screen lady fights you’ve ever seen, and a seemingly unlimited supply of grappling hook guns.

You could call F6 a guilty pleasure, but you shouldn’t. There is nothing guilty about this pleasure.

Uncalled-for fact checkers and fun-ruiners may whine about things like the lack of realism — be it the “physics” or “pardons being granted for subordinate actions taken by government personnel that would be met with the death penalty.” But mentioning a disregard for the laws of physics as a reason for disliking F6 is like mentioning a disregard for the laws of physics as a reason for disliking Looney Tunes. This is the sixth movie in a series of PG-13 car race/crash porn, and you feel the need to remind that it’s not the type of film we’d rocket into space as proof to other lifeforms of all that humanity is capable of?

This is two hours of: If there’s a vehicle moving at dangerous speeds, someone is about to jump off it. Everything’s bigger — the stunt pieces, the fight scenes, The Rock’s neck — and it’s an entertaining angst-free joyride.

My only major gripe is the 15 minutes or so of establishing exposition before we get to the real car action. But once we get to the first chase, it’s a redline race to the end. The final climactic chase, which is actually more like climax four or five, lasts for nearly 20 minutes and is akin to a non-stop roller coaster loop with speed metal blaring.

Furious 6’s attempts to be as batshit crazy as possible, and it succeeds. This success outweighs any failed attempts to pull the heartstrings or make me like Ludacris. 

This is what you want to go see on a three-day weekend. This is the summertime cinema escapism we’ve been missing with the self-serious, blah blockbusters of sunny months past. True, hockey fan, you won’t leave the theater with more insight into what it is to be human. But, you may be tempted to speed a bit on the way home. (There’s a disclaimer at the end advising against this, but that’s like telling a kid to chill out after they’ve just slammed a glass of Kool-Aid.)

Sometimes you just need to be washed clean by the blissful absurdity of over-the-top car fantasy. After all, it’s been a pretty crappy spring, and we could all use a little escape.

A mostly spoiler-free note on the pre-credit's scene:  If you’ve been keeping up with Fast & Furious canon — and who hasn’t — you’re probably aware of the fact that Han Seoul-Oh’s story comes to an end in the third part of the series (Tokyo Drift) though he appears in 4, 5 and 6. Well, that’s because films 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 all take place before 3 — the first directed by Justin Lin. I wouldn't dare spoil how this is cleared up, but you might watch this scene from Tokyo Drift before F6 to better understand how the two films collide.

--Eric Pulsifer

What are the rules for spoilers when talking about a movie based off an 88-year-old book that was required reading for the vast majority of high-schoolers? Well, just in case you didn't pay attention in English class (or forgot the gory details), I'll try and avoid anything past Chapter 1 territory.

The Great Gatsby is kind of a big deal — I mean, you know — for a book or whatever. (Reading, smh-eading, right?) But, people I suppose are qualified to do such considering widely consider it one of the greatest American novels ever penned. The Great Gatsby is, on the surface, about the Roaring Twenties, a wealthy fellow who goes by the name Gatsby and a long-lost love. We find out why Gatsby is (and isn't) so great in a tale of excess, the American dream, and why rich people and the East Coast kind of sucked in the summer of 1922. The ol' GG has been re-imagined as a film multiple times in the past, but this version comes care of Mr. Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge), counts Jay-Z as a producer and stars Leonardo DiCaprio.

How does it compare to the novel? I don’t consider faithfulness to the source material too important when talking about a film adaptation — the film vs. book debate seems apples vs. oranges to me — but there are moments that feel almost perfectly pulled from the page, with dialog and details spot on. There are also parts stretched, cut or exaggerated and a few liberties taken. (For example, the whole story is being recounted by narrator Nick Carraway [Tobey Maguire] to a therapist.) 

But faithful or re-imagined, the tale is always told through that colorful Baz lens, which goes from silly (e.g., the introduction of a lounging Daisy [Carey Mulligan] and Jordan [Elizabeth Debicki]) to tense (e.g., the climactic day in the city on the hottest day of the summer).

How Baz is it, doc? He really turns the Baz on and off at times. There are some scenes — like the apartment party where Nick gets hammered for the second time in his life (one of the visual highlights of the film), or on a manufactured meeting over tea where Gatsby goes overboard on the flowers, or watching hundreds of guests get rowdy at Gatsby's glitzy ragers — that are a treat for the eyes.

There are other sights and sounds I wasn't so wowed by. The abundance of CG in the first few minutes started things off on the wrong foot. Sure, Baz’s look would rarely be described as ultra-realistic and there aren't many other options for showing ‘20s-era NYC, but the visuals feel inconsistent — jumping from entirely green-screened sets early on to on-location shoots in ostentatious mansions later in the film. The second half of the film feels so different at times than the first that I forgot during some scenes this was a Baz Luhrmann movie.

Should I see it? Go for it. Baz's take of GG is plenty enjoyable and over the top and subdued as needed. Leo D. keeps the decade-long hot streak going of being the highlight of nearly everything he's in. No actor could get away with saying "old sport" this much without deserving a punch in the face. In some ways, his performance reminds of Catch Me If You Can; Gatsby has a mysterious past — the source of wealth is the stuff of late-night whispers — and as he talks about being an Oxford man and his family's fortune, there's something in his voice that makes us think he might be holding back.

What does it taste like? That's a weird question. I guess... peppermint ice cream and hot tea. But how about what I liked most about the film? That's an easier question. It's the cast: Leo’s Gatsby is a treat, as are Mulligan as Daisy and Joel Edgerton as her husband, old-money d-bag and polo player Tom Buchanan.

What's not so great?

• Baz is hyperactive with the zoom to a point that annoys. This constant moving in and moving out mixed with some scenes wrought with quick cuts gets irritating at times — particularly during the first half.
• Tobey Maguire is OK, but, God he's so Tobey Maguire-y — stoned looking, mousy and mostly forgettable.
• The 3D has it’s moments, but why would we voluntarily darken Baz's vivid visuals just to see a few panes of 3D glass and party streamers pop?

• Last among my gripes, the music — mainly Jay-Z's contributions. I know it's Baz's game to throw modern music in, but when it's Jay-Z and Kanye songs that we've heard on the radio a million times before, it doesn't have the same punch as, say, Radiohead's chilly "Talk Show Host" in Romeo + Juliet. I suspect that Jay-Z fancies himself a bit of an F. Scott Fitzgerald and Watch the Throne as a critique on excess and America's love affair with material things, so it makes sense he'd want to be a part of this movie. But, I think that might just be in his head, as I'm not sure that's the message we're getting here.
  
  

-- Eric Pulsifer

As far as pure excitement goes, moviegoers will be hard-pressed to find a superhero movie that offers more of it than Marvel’s Iron Man franchise. Iron Man 3 continues that trend, cranking the level of intensity up to 11, while also taking the viewer on a journey into the fragile psyche of a vulnerable Tony Stark.

Director and co-writer Shane Black (Lethal Weapon) is handed the keys to the latest installment in the series. There are plenty of thrills to be had on this ride for sure, but at times it seems not much else.

In this outing, we find our hero, Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) squaring off against a new nemesis, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), who orchestrates the detonation of a series of bombs, obliterating nearly everything and everyone in their blast radius, and leaving no trace of the device that was used. After Stark’s ex-bodyguard and long-time friend Happy (Jon Favreau) is injured in one of the blasts, Stark sets off on a mission of “good old-fashioned revenge.”

Before Stark can even suit up though, he has the foundations of his life blown out from under him—literally— thanks to some well-placed missiles. I guess he probably regrets giving the Mandarin his home address now.

This attack leaves Stark stranded far from home, without any protection, and to his own devices—much the way we saw the character in the first Iron Man film.

There is also something different about Stark this time around. He seems to suffer from some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder that leaves him overwhelmed with anxiety at the mere mention of the words “New York.” It’s clear that the fight against Loki and the Chitauri army from the film The Avengers has clearly left Stark more aware of his insignificance in the grand scheme of things—at one point in the film he refers to himself as “just a man in a can.”  

Once again, it’s difficult to find fault in Downey’s portrayal of the flawed character. His trademark wit and rapid-fire retort style return front and center, leaving him in command of the screen any time he’s on camera, and leaving the audience lingering for his next utterance.    

Downey isn’t the only one who delivers a worthy performance. Ben Kingsley is masterful in his portrayal of bin Laden-esque—in appearance and motivation—the Mandarin. Guy Pearce also shines as the other bad guy in the film, Aldrich Killian (his last name has the word “kill” in it … You know he’s evil). Killian is a former science geek who holds a grudge against Stark for blowing him off one New Year’s Eve, and looks to destroy the self-proclaimed genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist by teaming up with the Mandarin.  

Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle also reprise their roles as Pepper Potts and James Rhodes, respectively.

While there is nothing outright bad about the film, as I watched it I felt like there just wasn’t enough Iron Man. During much of the movie, Stark is stripped of his trademark armor. And while watching Stark go tit-for-tat with a young kid he befriends was entertaining at times, I found myself asking inside my head: “When am I going to see Iron Man blow something up?” I guess that’s just the comic book fan/kid in me.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of explosions and whiz bang visual and special effects to keep diehard action fans happy (the falling out the plane scene was spectacular). The climax scene of the movie is nothing short of breathtaking, delivering some of the best effects I’ve seen in any movie.

This is definitely a “go see.” It avoids some of the pitfalls that plague many films adapted from comic books. It offers enough highs and lows and ventures into some new territory to prevent it from feeling like a “been there, done that” affair. While it would be dishonest to call this film the best of the franchise, it stands up well as another entertaining entry in the Iron Man saga.   

-- Derrick Mitcham