Furious 7 - directed by James Wan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Lucas Black
Running Time: 137 minutes
Rated: M - Mild Profanity and cartoonish, blood free violence
As a franchise I have had a love / hate relationship with The Fast and the Furious.
I found the first one perfectly fine, hated the second one with a vengeance, refused to see the third and only saw the fourth after the fifth one impressed me greatly.
Then the sixth installment hit and I was back to not liking the series much.
So the tally for me of the five that I had seen prior to this latest one is- dislike two of them (2 and 6), like two of them (1 and 4), love one of them (5).
Each and every one of these movies is dumb.
Super dumb.
And I don't mean that necessarily as a put down.
There is after all a smart way to make dumb movies.
The fifth Fast & Furious movie is a prime example.
It has a simple but logical plot, well executed action that doesn't go too far over the edge of ridiculousness, a decent dollop of humour and it is a huge amount of fun.
It is a genuinely fine action film.
Now the sixth film forgot all of this and went completely over the edge.
It had poorly constructed action, a non-sensical plot and was out and out ridiculous.
So tonight as I waited for the session to begin I was hoping beyond all hope that this movie would be smart dumb like part five and not completely dumb like part six.
Obviously the death of Paul Walker during production casts a large shadow over this film.
Requiring re-writes, re-shoots and months of state of the art CGI work by the wizards at Weta Digital to fill in Walker's missing moments the film was completed in what must have been very difficult conditions- technically and emotionally.
The cast is famously very close and Walker's untimely death affected them greatly.
Diesel, Brewster, Rodriguez, Ludacris, Gibson and Johnson are all series veterans alongside Walker.
This time they are joined by Jason Statham, Nathalie Emmanuel, Djimon Hounsou and Kurt Russell.
It is a powerhouse cast.
Starting with a ridiculously over the top introduction for the villainous Deckard Shaw (Statham) who has all but demolished the hospital housing his critically injured brother (refer to part 6) the film sets the tone early.
It's silly but it works and a couple of the lines are very nicely written.
Deckard sets out to avenge his brother and begins by mailing a large box containing a bomb from Japan to the LA residence of Dominic Toretto (Diesel)
It doesn't work of course.
What would have worked is if he had driven by and shot at them or tossed a bomb or hell- any number of other explosive or ballistic methods.
But the box was required in order to get Dom to Japan to meet with Lucas Black thus further linking part 3 and parts 6 & 7.
And this is one of the main problems I have with this movie.
It has a series of requirements that mean that illogical things happen in order to get from a to b.
Early on Deckard has another opportunity to kill one of the main characters but waits too long and the intervention of a government agency causes him to flee.
This agency is extremely well funded but just hands off the task at hand to Dom and his crew despite the fact that in the scene I just described they had in fact managed to track down Deckard only to let him go!
Of course I don't go to movies like Furious 7 for plot or logic but this is too much the other way for my tastes - specially after the exceptional fifth installment which showed how well plot can lead to action and not the inverse.
Within half an hour my expectations were fading with Furious 7 and it settled into a parody of its own franchise.
Whenever I watch "Hot Shots" it amazes me that it is only slightly more ridiculous than "Top Gun".
"Furious 7" is like a piss take of "Fast 5"
The action scenes vary from decent to dull and like the film before it they go on for far too long with far too many physics defying moments.
High calibre bullets seemingly have no effect whatsoever during a vehicular rescue sequence that begins with half a dozen cars parachuting out of a transport jet and landing perfectly on roads.
Characters appear miraculously just at the right moment to intervene just when needed.
In one utterly ridiculous moment Dwayne Johnson appears out of nowhere in an ambulance to destroy a predator drone by driving off a road atop the tunnel that it flies out of but how did he know where it was let alone to the degree required to time the drop perfectly?
Shortly afterwards we see him unloading a minigun into a helicopter that refuses to be remotely bothered by the firey onslaught because that is not a cool or unrealistic enough way to destroy a helicopter in this movie. Na- you want to drive a car at it - that's what you want to do.
As I say- I am not here for plot but can we just please have action scenes that make sense and stay somewhere within the realms of action movie reality?
There is a limit and this film crosses it too many times.
It may sound like I hated "Furious 7" but I didn't.
It is perfectly fine as entertainment and it flies along at a hell of a pace with very little non-action time.
Ludacris is once again a strong presence and the addition of Johnson a couple of movies back was a great move and continues to pay off.
He needs far more screen time here as does Elsa Pataky (sporting a cool new short hairdo)
He is sidelined for most of the movie and this is not a great idea.
Series newcomer Nathalie Emmanuel seems to exist merely to look good emerging from the ocean in a bikini and I am fine with this.
Kurt Russell is always a good idea even if his characters actions make no sense at all. I suspect he exists chiefly to set up an eight movie where he is the bad guy.
And on the subject of baddies.....
Statham plays nothing more than a cartoon villain but he does it as well as you would think.
The fight scenes between Deckard and Dom are absurd but of course in this franchise a metal bar swung at the face doesn't even warrant a bruise so I guess it's all good.
What is worse is that Deckard puts Hobbs in the hospital early on but can't deal easily to Dom.
So Dom and Hobbs are an equal match as we have seen in Fast 5 but Deckard beats Hobbs and can't beat Dom?
It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things of course. This thing is going to make a fortune and anyone who has liked all of the previous films will no doubt love this one.
It's switch the brain off stuff but there is at least one heartfelt moment.
The tribute to Walker at the end is perfect in tone. It is touching and respectful - real lump in the throat stuff.
"Furious 7" isn't terrible but it isn't terribly good either.
I was struck by how unengaged I was with the action here.
As I watched I felt like I should be finding it exhilarating but my reaction was the one of a curious bystander.
"Hmm... they're parachuting cars out of a cargo plane... okay"..... "Oh, Michelle Rodriguez is in a fist fight with Rhonda Rousey".... "They're driving a car out of one skyscraper into another".
The bus off a cliff sequence was exciting to be fair. It is torn right out of the opening scene of the amazing game "Uncharted 2" but still- very well done.
With Walker obviously now no longer to be a feature of future films there is always the thought that he will be killed off so the scenes with him do have added tension.
Generally though there are so few deaths in these films (and some people even come back from the dead) that there is rarely any cause for concern.
Buildings can tumble down around characters, they can be blown out of fifth story buildings onto parked cars and they can crash bullet ridden vehicles down mountainsides and there is absolutely no cause for concern.
I hate to keep harking back to part 5 but there was genuine tension and much concern for the main characters in that movie. The chase sequences were exciting and superbly shot and edited and the action flow well within the plot. One event lead to another in a logical fashion.
Well after parts 6 and 7 part 5 is starting to look like an anomaly.
A dare I say - fluke?
RATING: 70 / 100
CONCLUSION: Fast 5 remains the best in the series by far and shines as an example of how to make a smart dumb movie. This one however is more like the sixth - mainly just dumb.
Running Time: 137 minutes
Rated: M - Mild Profanity and cartoonish, blood free violence
As a franchise I have had a love / hate relationship with The Fast and the Furious.
I found the first one perfectly fine, hated the second one with a vengeance, refused to see the third and only saw the fourth after the fifth one impressed me greatly.
Then the sixth installment hit and I was back to not liking the series much.
So the tally for me of the five that I had seen prior to this latest one is- dislike two of them (2 and 6), like two of them (1 and 4), love one of them (5).
Each and every one of these movies is dumb.
Super dumb.
And I don't mean that necessarily as a put down.
There is after all a smart way to make dumb movies.
The fifth Fast & Furious movie is a prime example.
It has a simple but logical plot, well executed action that doesn't go too far over the edge of ridiculousness, a decent dollop of humour and it is a huge amount of fun.
It is a genuinely fine action film.
Now the sixth film forgot all of this and went completely over the edge.
It had poorly constructed action, a non-sensical plot and was out and out ridiculous.
So tonight as I waited for the session to begin I was hoping beyond all hope that this movie would be smart dumb like part five and not completely dumb like part six.
Obviously the death of Paul Walker during production casts a large shadow over this film.
Requiring re-writes, re-shoots and months of state of the art CGI work by the wizards at Weta Digital to fill in Walker's missing moments the film was completed in what must have been very difficult conditions- technically and emotionally.
The cast is famously very close and Walker's untimely death affected them greatly.
Diesel, Brewster, Rodriguez, Ludacris, Gibson and Johnson are all series veterans alongside Walker.
This time they are joined by Jason Statham, Nathalie Emmanuel, Djimon Hounsou and Kurt Russell.
It is a powerhouse cast.
Starting with a ridiculously over the top introduction for the villainous Deckard Shaw (Statham) who has all but demolished the hospital housing his critically injured brother (refer to part 6) the film sets the tone early.
It's silly but it works and a couple of the lines are very nicely written.
Deckard sets out to avenge his brother and begins by mailing a large box containing a bomb from Japan to the LA residence of Dominic Toretto (Diesel)
It doesn't work of course.
What would have worked is if he had driven by and shot at them or tossed a bomb or hell- any number of other explosive or ballistic methods.
But the box was required in order to get Dom to Japan to meet with Lucas Black thus further linking part 3 and parts 6 & 7.
It has a series of requirements that mean that illogical things happen in order to get from a to b.
Early on Deckard has another opportunity to kill one of the main characters but waits too long and the intervention of a government agency causes him to flee.
This agency is extremely well funded but just hands off the task at hand to Dom and his crew despite the fact that in the scene I just described they had in fact managed to track down Deckard only to let him go!
Of course I don't go to movies like Furious 7 for plot or logic but this is too much the other way for my tastes - specially after the exceptional fifth installment which showed how well plot can lead to action and not the inverse.
Within half an hour my expectations were fading with Furious 7 and it settled into a parody of its own franchise.
Whenever I watch "Hot Shots" it amazes me that it is only slightly more ridiculous than "Top Gun".
"Furious 7" is like a piss take of "Fast 5"
The action scenes vary from decent to dull and like the film before it they go on for far too long with far too many physics defying moments.
High calibre bullets seemingly have no effect whatsoever during a vehicular rescue sequence that begins with half a dozen cars parachuting out of a transport jet and landing perfectly on roads.
Characters appear miraculously just at the right moment to intervene just when needed.
In one utterly ridiculous moment Dwayne Johnson appears out of nowhere in an ambulance to destroy a predator drone by driving off a road atop the tunnel that it flies out of but how did he know where it was let alone to the degree required to time the drop perfectly?
Shortly afterwards we see him unloading a minigun into a helicopter that refuses to be remotely bothered by the firey onslaught because that is not a cool or unrealistic enough way to destroy a helicopter in this movie. Na- you want to drive a car at it - that's what you want to do.
As I say- I am not here for plot but can we just please have action scenes that make sense and stay somewhere within the realms of action movie reality?
There is a limit and this film crosses it too many times.
It is perfectly fine as entertainment and it flies along at a hell of a pace with very little non-action time.
Ludacris is once again a strong presence and the addition of Johnson a couple of movies back was a great move and continues to pay off.
He needs far more screen time here as does Elsa Pataky (sporting a cool new short hairdo)
He is sidelined for most of the movie and this is not a great idea.
Series newcomer Nathalie Emmanuel seems to exist merely to look good emerging from the ocean in a bikini and I am fine with this.
Kurt Russell is always a good idea even if his characters actions make no sense at all. I suspect he exists chiefly to set up an eight movie where he is the bad guy.
And on the subject of baddies.....
Statham plays nothing more than a cartoon villain but he does it as well as you would think.
The fight scenes between Deckard and Dom are absurd but of course in this franchise a metal bar swung at the face doesn't even warrant a bruise so I guess it's all good.
What is worse is that Deckard puts Hobbs in the hospital early on but can't deal easily to Dom.
So Dom and Hobbs are an equal match as we have seen in Fast 5 but Deckard beats Hobbs and can't beat Dom?
It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things of course. This thing is going to make a fortune and anyone who has liked all of the previous films will no doubt love this one.
It's switch the brain off stuff but there is at least one heartfelt moment.
The tribute to Walker at the end is perfect in tone. It is touching and respectful - real lump in the throat stuff.
 |
| Franchise newcomers Nathalie Emmanuel and Rhonda Rousey join the series regulars |
I was struck by how unengaged I was with the action here.
As I watched I felt like I should be finding it exhilarating but my reaction was the one of a curious bystander.
"Hmm... they're parachuting cars out of a cargo plane... okay"..... "Oh, Michelle Rodriguez is in a fist fight with Rhonda Rousey".... "They're driving a car out of one skyscraper into another".
The bus off a cliff sequence was exciting to be fair. It is torn right out of the opening scene of the amazing game "Uncharted 2" but still- very well done.
With Walker obviously now no longer to be a feature of future films there is always the thought that he will be killed off so the scenes with him do have added tension.
Generally though there are so few deaths in these films (and some people even come back from the dead) that there is rarely any cause for concern.
Buildings can tumble down around characters, they can be blown out of fifth story buildings onto parked cars and they can crash bullet ridden vehicles down mountainsides and there is absolutely no cause for concern.
I hate to keep harking back to part 5 but there was genuine tension and much concern for the main characters in that movie. The chase sequences were exciting and superbly shot and edited and the action flow well within the plot. One event lead to another in a logical fashion.
Well after parts 6 and 7 part 5 is starting to look like an anomaly.
A dare I say - fluke?
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