Furious 7 review

Spoilers

  Where to begin with this franchise. The Fast & Furious franchise has gone through a lot of development since it's humble beginnings in 2001. The first three The Fast & The Furious, 2 Fast & 2 Furious , and Tokyo Drift were slanted in the usual dumb action movie franchises that managed to survive by it's fan base and was largely ignored by and cited as bad by the main stream audience (casual movie goers) and critics. Then all of the sudden with Fast & Furious (the fourth one) under director Justin Lin it managed to become seen as something kind of tolerable by everybody, still nothing interesting or that great but OK. That was until the fifth one directed again by Justin Lin, it turned out the be a surprise hit that a lot of people not just the usual fan base but mainstream movie goers and critics really liked. The sixth one even bigger and the new one Furious 7 (even though Fast 7 sounds more catchy) directed by James Wan the movie has come under critical praise and is schedule for an over $143 million dollar opening weekend. That's amazing.

   To me it the reason they've been able to turn it around this well is that the people behind realized how serious they were taking the franchise and embraced the ridiculous nature of these kinds of films balancing it well with some dignity. My own personal opinion on the movies is I really like the first one despite how bad it is, found the second and third one kind of boring, the fourth one was OK, I loved the fifth one, the sixth one is pretty good and I really like it if not as good as the fifth one and the latest one Furious 7 is to me the second best one in the series and my second favorite.
 
    The main plot of this franchise is that Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) brother to Owen Shaw wants revenge for what Dominic Torretto (Vin Diesel) and Brain O'Connor (the late Paul Walker) as well as the rest of their crew did to his brother in the last movie. He starts relentlessly hunting down the crew  managing to Kill Han ( Sung Kang), and seriously injure Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson.) After an attack on Han's funeral Dom is given a way to track down Shaw by covert ops specialist Petty (Kurt Russell), if he can rescue a hacker named Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) from terrorist one of whom is Moses Jakande ( Djimon Hounsou), who has a special computer program that can track anyone in the world, if they can find Ramsey and the computer program they can use it to track Shaw and enact revenge on him.

   That is probably one of the most convoluted plots in the world and should really be strike against the movie but I loved this movie. The movie is a lot fun and actually has some really touching moments in it and the ending is basically perfect.

     The plot while a bit much to interpret at first you can figure it out pretty easily and it fits well with the last four films tone of ridiculousness with dignity. The plot of rescuing hackers and super trackers with covert ops teams is ridiculous but the in between stuff and the revenge and family motivations are believable so it gives the film dignity. It's also one of the more tightly structured of the Fast movies along with five and it spends all 137 minutes well.

   The action set pieces are really good my favorite being the tower crash scene and you definitely won't be bored. People often criticize that a lot of the action sequences are a little too unbelievable but to me I think the action sequences exist in a realm where while they probably wouldn't happen under certain circumstances and theoretically I think they could happen. For example crashing through three buildings while you would probably die from shock I can believe to certain extent you could crash through three skyscrapers if you had enough speed and a good enough car. As well as the fact most of the action sequences are just plain awesome so you don't really care.

   My favorite parts of these films are seeing the chemistry between all the actors and it's still here, this film isn't as funny or banter filled as the last film but it still manages to have so funny moments mainly with Tyrese Gibson who to me is still the heart of the movie. Everyone is genuine and you can tell is having a lot of fun even Kurt Russell who has a pretty good moments and is funny as well. They managed to give Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Brain O'Connor pretty well realized character arcs in my opinion and give the film a lot of good moments. To me some of the best moments were whenever the characters were just talking and the more emotional moments and they didn't feel force but instead felt natural considering what some of these guys have been through. Although their is this 'What' moment with Tej Parker (Ludacris) that is the equivalent of Vin Diesel beating up the Rock in the fifth film where despite this being a franchise that has people driving cars out of planes is a bit too much.

    If I do have big complaints about the movie is that I think the underutilized Statham just a bit, don't get me wrong he is one of the best villians of the franchise, I like his motivations and the opening with his is just completely badass I think they could have given him one or two more scenes to give him room to be himself. I also wish the Hacker Rasmey got more to do, she's important to the plot but other than a few hacking jobs she doesn't really do much and I wish that Ludacris scene had been given to her. Especially in comparison to Michelle Rodriguez who has a pretty kickass fight with a female body guard (Ronda Rousey) who I hear that the one line she was given annoyed a lot of critics but I thought it was ok and fits the tone of the movie. Also I know showing off girls body parts is a thing is the movie but this seemed to have the most ass shots in any movie ever especially during the Dubai party and it takes you out of the movie because of how much of an emphasis they put on it.

  Now of course the thing everyone wants to talk about is the death of Paul Walker and how it affects the movie. Surprisingly James Wan and the other people behind it handled really well, it doesn't feel like anything was really affected except the scenes you can tell he hadn't filmed before he died in which is really just one action scene and they just darken the scenery and shoot him from behind but overall nothing really lost. To me the best part of the movie is the last five minutes and how they send Paul Walker out which is just beautiful, basically perfect and one of the few times I've ever cried in a theater. And I'm pretty stone cold when it comes to sad scenes in movies (only person who didn't cry during Marley & Me) so you know it's effective.

  I give this film a 8/10~ Great action, great chemistry, great moments and a perfect send off to a guy who left way too soon.

  The only thing now is, is where do they go. I hope they don't make a Furious 8 because not only is this the perfect send off to Paul Walker but the entire franchise in general, a lot of storylines are wrapped and it feels as if you could just slap on 'And they all lived happily ever after' and it would be good.

So that's my review of Furious 7 and see you tomorrow for the weekend box office which I spoiled who is probably going to be number one.

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