I wish this could just be your average, everyday disc review. I wish I were running a series of three interviews alongside this piece as planned, and not because I cared so much about getting them. I wish that the reason everyone is so hyper-aware of anything Fast-related hadn't come to pass. My colleague Brian Truitt conducted what now appears acknowledged as the last interview Paul Walker ever did.
The disc being released in the US next week currently defaults not to "Play Movie", but to a two-minute preview of the next Fast & Furious movie. Rumor chatter points to Universal having no choice, given the roadmap they had planned, but to start over from scratch. According to what Devin Faraci hears (as related on the most recent episode of Screen Time), this is by necessity, due to the movie and the planned eighth installment focusing heavily on Paul Walker's Brian O'Conner character. This may be the only footage from the first pass of the movie released, but I hope that isn't the case.
Contrary to stories posted since the sudden and tragic death of series co-star Paul Walker, there's no way that Universal can remote-hide this, nor is the disc being recalled. The second pressing of the movie is a ways off, one expects, since this was positioned as the biggest mainstream home video release before the end of the year. Universal may remove it in further masterings of the F&F6 Blu-ray, but no one should go crazy buying up copies speculating that this version will be worth dozens of dollars. All around, it's pointless to speculate for now. If you are into this movie or its series, the disc is worth buying no matter what.
Regarding the movie itself, it is the culmination of what Justin Lin started doing in Tokyo Drift, the third in the series and his first in the director's chair. He took a series that was firmly planted in the "street racer" genre and allowed it to drift (pun intended) into espionage, heist, and finally, the superhero genre. The best part is that the audience is always in on the joke, and Lin's pictures (this one especially) manage good/evil divisions in a post-Cold War world by towing the line of selfish versus selfless. The dialogue, characterization, and circumstances are heightened to the point that the capers involved are fun, but that you care about the broad, archetypical characters. Under Lin's care, you will believe a car (and various drivers) can fly.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) leaves this room (and this guy) looking like this in a perfect example of the "comicbooking" of the F&F franchise
The highlight of the Blu-ray is far and away Justin Lin's solo commentary, which does point out differences that make the Director's Cut, at under a minute longer, his preferred version. In short, the differences a tiny bit of additional dialogue (maybe three lines), additional on-screen violence (a single kick at the end of Gina Carano's fight with Michelle Rodriguez), and a more harsh, realistic sound mix in Paul Walker's prison fight sequence.
With Lin directly alluding to it twice, I feel safe saying that 99% of the slight alterations made were in the interest of being sure in advance of obtaining a "PG-13" rating instead of "R". The changes are not so big that fans should be banging down the doors that Lin was robbed, shortchanged, or anything of the sort. I enjoyed his acknowledged desire to really re-frame these movies as comic book-style action movies.
this super-sized sequence was, at one time, the end of this movie, with the rest of Fast 6 being part of the 7th movie
The deleted scenes are all minor snips to existing sequences, all of which are better for their not being in the final movie (either version of it). The various featurettes are most notable in a couple of cases for showing just how practical a bunch of the effects were (The Flip Car, Planes Tanks and Automobiles), and at once highlighting just how unlikely it is that as many driving sequences in future franchise films will find the actors doing their own driving. Just as hyper-sensitive as the industry got to on-screen gun usage after Brandon Lee was killed on the set of The Crow, it is a very safe bet that from bond insurers and studio execs down to stunt teams, car safety is going to get ratcheted up significantly, even if only for appearance's sake.
The featurettes aren't EPK-style fluff, but they're basically the sort of things you'll watch once and be done with. The commentary is king.
"that's why your girls wear so much bling"
It's impossible to ignore the effect Paul Walker's death has had not only on the movies to come, but the ones that have come before. There are screen grabs I was planning to run in this article from the fiery climactic sequence, and to use them now would be beyond bad taste. It's tough to look at them in the folder on my desktop, let alone imagine them in some listicle post on Buzzfeed proclaiming "the 10 most prophetic shots of Fast & Furious 6".
When watching the movie for the first time at a press screening, I could have sworn they were setting us up for a tragic death for his character, and I was surprised and delighted to see them swerve away from what it looked like they had telegraphed. For what it's worth, I hope they scrap everything they shot for the seventh movie and take his character into witness protection and relocation off-screen. If they use any of his footage, put it in Dom's dreams or something. It would be the only instance of the "it was all just a dream" mechanism that I would heartily endorse.
