Fast and Furious 7 Review

 

 

 

 

 

Right, well I've finally gotten around to watching a new film of late (or rather one I haven't seen!) and the film in question is Fast and Furious 7 (which came out back in 2015, so not that new!) as I had seen the first six films, so I finally got around to watching this one. 

So, with that said, let's see how the 7th film in the franchise fairs...

And the usual warning is coming up...

PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD!!

STORY 

So, I will quote some of the plot from Wikipedia to save myself some time.

"After defeating Owen Shaw and his crew and securing amnesty for their past crimes, Dominic "Dom" Toretto, Brian O'Conner and the rest of their team have returned to the United States to live peaceful, normal lives again. Brian begins to accustom himself to life as a father, while Dom tries to help Letty Ortiz regain her memory. Meanwhile, Owen's older brother, Deckard, breaks into the secure hospital in London where the comatose Owen is being held in, before breaking into DSS office in Los Angeles to extract profiles of Dom's crew. After revealing his identity, Deckard engages Luke Hobbs in a fight and escapes when he detonates a bomb that severely injures Hobbs. Dom later learns from his sister Mia that she is pregnant again and convinces her to tell Brian. However, a letter bomb sent from Tokyo, explodes and destroys the Toretto house just seconds after Han Lue, a member of Dom's team, is killed by Deckard in Tokyo".

Additional plot info by me:

After this, Dom pays a visit to Hobbs in hospital (at Hobbs request) who tells him who Deckard is and that unofficially he wants Dom to pursue him. So, its from here that Dom sets out on a dangerous mission to take down Deckard but in order to do it, he will need the help of his crew including Brian...

THOUGHTS

Well, after six films, its in a way reassuring to see that Fast and Furious 7 follows the formulae that made its predecessors so successful as its a very entertaining action film, which is undoubtedly the most proposterously over the top film in the franchise up to this point! And the film has its share of over the top action scenes and ridiculous gravity defying car chases and when I mean gravity defying I mean just that as in one scene, Dom drives a sports car through three buildings! 

The film however also has a more poignant theme to it because this was the final one to feature Paul Walker in the role of ex-cop, Brian O'Connor as Walker himself was killed in a car accident in 2013 at the age of 40. So, the film naturally is dedicated to Walker and it also shows a collection of clips of Walker as O'Connor at the end of the film to comemmorate him.

PERFORMANCES (No notable scenes this time!)

As for the performances, things are mostly pretty good here from the cast.

Starting with Vin Diesel who effortlessly returns to the role of Dominic Torretto, a former professional street racer and Vin plays the role with his usual mix of cool, muscle and his usual gravelly voiced delivery. Diesel also has some good action scenes in the film too that include a melee fight with Jason Statham's character, Deckard as well as some bizzarely over the top car chase scenes where Dom drives a car and smashes through three high rise buildings in Abu Dhabi! 

Paul Walker is also pretty good in his final performance as Brian O'Connor, a former FBI agent, who works as part of Dom's crew and is married to Dom's sister, Mia in this film. Walker's performance also has a poignant ring to it because there is a scene where Brian calls Mia and emotionally tells her that he might not see her again as he undertakes the dangerous mission to take down Deckard. Walker would later as mentioned, die tragically in a car accident in November 2013 and the film makers had to resort to using Walker's younger brothers as stand-ins to complete some of his scenes. 

Dwayne Johnson also makes a welcome return in the role of the DSS agent, Dobbs, who ends up being hospitalised as a result of his fight with Deckard and he asks Dom for help in taking down Deckard. Johnson himself was filming Hercules at the time of the production, which did restrict his screen time in the film. 

Michelle Rodriguez is also very good as she returns in her role as Letty, Dom's wife, who had previously suffered amnesia after being presumed dead in the film, Fast and Furious (basically the 4th film of the franchise). Letty this time round joins Dom and his crew in their mission to try and take down Deckard. 

Tyrese Gibson also returns in his role as the cocky, wise-cracking Roman Pearce, who is a tech expert and part of Dom's team. Pearce also spends alot of the time trying to be an alpha male or rather as he puts it a "double alpha male" and eyes up a British femake hacker, Ramsey, who joins Dom's crew for the mission.

Djimon Hounsou is also pretty good in his role as the villainous Mose Jakande, who is an ally to Deckard Shaw and a Nigerian born terrorist, who wants to use a special hacking device known as God's eye to track his enemies. 

Jordanna Brewster again returns in her role as Mia Toretto, who is now married to Brian and they have children but its revealed she is pregnant with another child, so obviously Mia stays at home in this film and remains in an anxious state for Brian's safety on his mission. 

Nathalie Emmanuel does very well in her role as Ramsey, the female British hacker, who helps Dom and his team against Shaw and Jakande and Nathalie has her own Bond-esque scene where Ramsey walks out of the sea onto a beach wearing bikini! Rather nice scene too! ;-) 

Kurt Russell also provides a fine performance in his role as Mr Nobody, who is the leader of a special covert ops team, who helps back up Dom and his team in tracking and taking down Shaw. Russell looks his age here at 64 but he does very well all the same in the part. 

And last of all is Jason Statham, who is the primary antagonist of the film, Deckard Shaw, who is out for revenge after his brother was left comatose at the hands of Dom's team in Spain (in the previous film I'm guessing). So, Shaw himself is a badass former rogue special forces assassin, who spends quite a bit of the film tearing up s*** around him and ends up later having a big fight with Dom. Statham does well in the role and he basically does his usual gritty Statham being Statham performance although this time, its interesting to see him play the villain.

DIRECTOR 

As for the director, James Wan, does a fine job here as he confidently handles the film's over the top action scenes but also keeps the film's pace zipping along nicely despite the film's fairly length running time of 2 hours and 17 minutes. Wan himself is the creator of the Saw and Insidious horror film franchises, so this was a bit of a departure, which Wan would later go on to direct the DC superhero film, Aquaman. 

MUSIC 

Score wise, the film's music was done by Brian Tyler who provides a decent enough soundtrack, which is very fitting to the tone of the film but its nothing overly special or memorable. Tyler however has still had extensive score experience having composed numerous film soundtracks such as the Expendables trilogy, Transformers, Iron Man 3 and the Avengers: Age of Ultron to name a few.

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

So, as for flaws....yep Furious 7 has its share...

For starters, the film is without a doubt the most ridiculously over the top entry in the franchise so far up to this point with some proposterously silly stunts. For starters, there is the scene where Dom drives and smashes a fancy sports car through three high rise buildings in Abu Dhabi, which he and Brian of course survive! 

However, that's not all, Dom also has nuermous crashes in the film, all of which he survives as he has a car showdown duel with Shaw twice and he survives both of them without a single scratch! Not to mention of course later on near the end, Dom yet again narrowly avoids death as he crashes his car drives it over the top of Jakande's chopper! So, yeah its safe to say that Dom is virtually indestructable in this film and nothing can take him down!

And then there is of course the ridiculous moment where Hobbs, who witnesses Dom's team in action on the TV later on in LA, as Hobbs sits up in his hospital bed, wearing a full arm cast, he decides to jump out of bed, tear his arm cast off and suit up his armour and go out and help Dom! So, yeah it is a pretty ridiculous moment not only in the film but also from the entire series. And yep before you know it, Dobbs is out there helping Dom's team and he soon grabs a mini-gun from a downed enemy chopper and starts to shooting at bad guys! So, yeahhhhh its not exactly realistic to say the least! 

I also felt that while Shaw is supposed to be the main bad guy in the film, Jason Statham was still somewhat sidelined in this film as he doesn't have much in the way of actual dialogue and its mainly just him kicking ass or ramming cars at Dom! So, I felt in a way they could have handled Statham's character a bit better than they actually did. 

And lastly I think it has to be said that series had become pretty formulaic by this time as you just know that Dom and his team will be involved in yet another mission to obtain or capture something or someone and this time its the female hacker, Ramsey. So, yeah by this time, Dom is no longer a simple street racer, he is now like a member of the mission impossible team! 

So, that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, Fast and Furious 7 is a very enjoyable entry in the franchise and it is filled with fast paced action and plenty of fun moments with the main cast all on good form. Its also sad that it was the final performance for Paul Walker before his tragic death only at the age of 40 but he does get a fitting and rather poignant send-off at the end of the film.

The film of course does have some problems as the action scenes are bit too ridiculous at times and Dom once again proves that he virtually indestructable in the face of spectacular car crashes or even taking on ex special forces assassins and matching them blow for blow despite Dom having no such training himself! 

But... if you are willing to overlook its faults, Fast and Furious 7 is still worth a look and an enjoyable entry and poignant send-off for Paul Walker. 

So, I will give Fast and Furious 7...

7 out of 10.

Right, that's it for now and I will be back sometime soon with another post.

Until then, bye for now!