The seventh installment in this seemingly never ending franchise has Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) seeking revenge against Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and company (Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson) for the death of his brother Owen (Luke Evans) in the events of the previous movie. In addition to the main revenge plot Kurt Russell shows up as a mysterious government agent known only as Mr. Nobody, who recruits Dom & co. to rescue a kidnapped hacker named Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel). Ramsey has developed a program called "God's Eye" which can hack into any electronic device on the planet. Others in the cast include Lucas Black briefly reprising his character from 'Tokyo Drift', Ronda Rousey as a security guard in Abu Dhabi, Djimon Hounsou as another shady character who wants the "God's Eye" program and Asian action star Tony Jaa making his American film debut as a henchman.
But who really cares about the intricacies of plot, logic, and the laws of physics when we have cars parachuting onto mountains, expensive sports cars crashing through skyscrapers, Paul Walker jumping off of a vehicle that's falling off of a cliff and being able to perfectly grab ahold of the spoiler on a speeding car, and many other completely ludicrous action scenes that are just so much fun to watch.
And indeed this movie as a whole is AWESOME and I had a blast watching it at an IMAX theater. Ever since 'Fast Five' this series has strayed from street racing drama and shifted more towards over-the-top action, a change that has greatly benefited this series. Not just in terms of entertainment value in my opinion, but also critically and commercially. They've found the right formula and they've stuck with it. Now having said that this entry does feature more street racing than in the last few 'Fast & Furious' movies combined with plenty of callbacks to the 2001 original movie. As I've said, the action scenes are a lot of fun. A few are a bit more choppily edited than I would have liked but it never got to the point where I couldn't tell what was going on (cough cough 'Quantum of Solace'). And Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw is by far the best villain out of this entire series. A rogue agent who knows how to disappear and always appears out of the blue and leaves a trail of destruction behind him. His opening scene alone pretty much sums up everything about this character...and it's awesome.
Usually for franchises I'll list out the previous entries and my thoughts on them and then finally compare the entry I just saw to those. But I'll just say this right now: Out of the sequels, 'Furious 7' is the best one. Each movie surprisingly ups the ante and still keeps things fresh and interesting Sure we don't really need SEVEN of these movies but who cares when it's just so much fun?
James Wan takes over the directorial reins from Justin Lin, who had helmed the previous four 'Fast & Furious' movies. This is a step outside the box for Wan who made his name on horror movies like 'The Conjuring', the first two 'Insidious' movies, the first 'Saw' movie, and 'Dead Silence'. Sure some of the fight scenes are a little choppily edited but for the most part he doesn't miss a beat from where Lin left off. It'll be interesting to see who they inevitably hire to make the inevitable 'Fast & Furious 8'.
Now for Paul Walker's scenes that he hadn't filmed yet his brothers Caleb and Cody were used as stand-ins with his face being superimposed digitally on theirs. Is it noticeable when it's clearly a double or when it's clearly a CGI face? Yes it is, but those moments are brief and they don't take anything away from the movie.
Overall 'Furious 7' is a fun time at the movies with a great villain and plenty of awesome over the top action sequences, along with an ending that has a perfect send-off for Paul Walker.
TRAILERS
- 'Straight Outta Compton' - the N.W.A. biopic. I'm not really the biggest fan of rap but this actually looks decent.
- 'Spectre' - SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!!!!! Then again the last time I really looked forward to a Bond movie we ended up with 'Quantum of Solace'...
- 'Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation' - I somehow never really got into the 'Mission: Impossible' series. Sometimes I liked the action scenes but for the most part I didn't really care about anything happening. I'll watch this at some point since I've seen the others, but I won't be going in with high hopes.
- 'Jurassic World' - Why do I have to wait until June 12 for the park to be open??
- 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' - I've been eagerly awaiting this ever since the ending of the previous 'Avengers' movie.
- 'Terminator: Genisys' - ...this just looks like a rehash of almost everyone of the previous movies. And none of it makes any sense.
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