'Fast & Furious 6': What the critics are saying

Typically, the more installments a movie franchise has, the worse the flicks become.

But with the "Fast & Furious" series, it seems they've put out so many movies the franchise has come full circle to being great again. If you've dismissed "Fast & Furious 6" as nothing but a cheap attempt to milk the last out of a brand, you might want to think again.

The biggest draw is the momentum the sixth movie has sustained from "Fast Five," which most agree reinvigorated an increasingly lifeless series. You shouldn't expect much (or anything, really) in the way of high art from "Fast & Furious 6," but that's also part of the appeal. Its saving grace from being a throwaway, mindless action movie is its full embrace of its basic concept. As CNN's Tom Charity put it, the film is "ludicrous, but undeniably fun and surprisingly affectionate."

Los Angeles Times: "True, the movie doesn't know when or how to put the brakes on. It does, however, understand precisely what it is. No pretensions to greatness, it demonstrates total dedication to "badassness," which I believe is the technical term.

Washington Post: 'Fast & Furious 6,' like its predecessors, doesn’t need CGI, 3-D glasses or even praise from film critics. It just needs to please its audience with amped-up, old-school thrills that make its target demo whoop and holler with every zoom, smash and ka-BOOM. Consider this review a declaration that it does just that

Rolling Stone: "The new energy from 2011’s 'Fast Five' still holds. ... It’s kickass trash that never pretends to be more. Bonus points for that.

If you don't keep that perspective in mind, you might wind up walking away from the action flick with the words of USA Today's Claudia Puig reverberating in your head:

"This ultra-formulaic entry definitely has a few exciting stunts — a car hurtling out of a flaming airplane, two bodies flying through the air and landing safely in a clutch (of the hug variety, not a car component). But the story is standard-issue. ...[H]ightail it home and fire up 2011's fresher 'Fast Five