Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Jason Statham
Directed By: James Wan
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 137 minutes
Universal Pictures
Our Score: 3.5 out 5 Stars
You know what? You really don’t need to any of the other movies in “The Fast and The Furious” franchise. This a series that’s gone from being about petty street racing thieves to illegal street racers globetrotting and fighting villain’s born from the military’s disenfranchised. If your idea of fun is watching cars parachute out of a plane and attack like a swarm of Navy SEALS or a car driving through three skyscrapers, then “Furious 7” is going to make your pants explode.
So what’s the story? A die hard “Furious” fan could probably lay out the little intricate details better than I can because I haven’t watched all of them. But it’s not a deep story that requires cliff notes. It’s a fairly simple story that anyone can acquaint themselves with quickly. The crew, Dominic (Diesel), Brian (Walker), Luke (Dwayne Johnson), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Chris Bridges) are all back in the states, trying to maintain normal lives. However, hunting them one by one is the baddie of the film, Deckard (Statham). He’s a highly trained, professional, killer. The crew needs to get back together once again to turned become the hunters. But they’ll need to get a computer program that will track down the illusive Deckard.
There’s more to it than that, but I mean, who cares? Sure there are some blasé subplots, but you didn’t pay for a movie ticket to watch Dominic and Letty rekindle their romance or Brian attempting to live the suburbanite lifestyle. Hell no. You came to watch a camera follow wet hot, dripping girls, do things in slow motion, and watch cars whiz by at stupid high speeds, with stupid big explosions, and other stupid action that will leave you looking thunderstruck. “Furious 7” delivers that and more.
The problem with a movie that’s so exciting in terms of its action, is that it makes the emotional or dramatic scenes that much more stodgy. Obviously this is Paul Walker’s last film and it was important for the franchise, the actors, and everyone involved to send him off in a respectable way. But it really does nothing for me. This is a movie that has a predator drone fly around L.A and unblinkingly fires off missiles and blast it’s machine guns wildly, possibly killing numerous off-screen civilians. I’m not too concerned that Brian’s character gets to walk off peacefully into the sun with a catastrophic body count taking place.
What “Furious 7” needs to do is trim some story fat so that we have nothing, but the prime cut. But is “Furious 7” the action movie of the year? That’s yet to be seen with “Mad Max: Fury Road” coming out on the horizon. “Furious 7” will probably be the most profitable. Since watching the first “The Fast and the Furious” movie back in 2001, it’s definitely transitioned away from the somewhat respectable street racing movie that set the trend for others that followed it. It’s been a slow transition to the insane ride of “Furious 7” that attempts to one up every outlandish stunt. What we have after 14 years of treading through frivolous story is an insanely cartoonish movie. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
