Fast Month - Furious 7

Well, this is movie where this Franchise entered the big leagues, this movie made over $1bn at the world-wide box office, and got critical acclaim of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average of 6.7/10, the highest the series has ever gotten and a decent 7.2/10 on IMDb, only slightly below 5.

Compounding everything is the unfortunate death of Paul Walker. He died (rather ironically) in a car crash. Most of the filming had been completed, all they did is re-do the ending, with digital effects houses super-imposing Walker’s face over the body of one of his brothers. We’ll talk about how they ended it later. But here are my thoughts on how the movie stands as a whole.

We get a proper introduction to Owen Shaw’s brother Deckard, he’s a mercenary type, can come up with successful battle plans and is lethal at every turn, able to take out a platoon of armed guards at a military hospital. He now has his eyes on Toretto and his crew for what they did to his brother, and they’ve retconned it so he’s responsible for the death of Han.

After Han’s funeral the remaining members of Dom’s team, including a still amnesic Letty, join together to stop him, but then get caught up with a mcguffin chase that includes some of the most fun I’ve seen out of this franchise.

Let’s throw out any semblance of realism, Fast and Furious has basically become a live-action cartoon at this point, and I don’t mean that as a criticism. There’s something undeniably awesome about watching Dom’s team parachute cars out of a plane, and watching Dom and Brian drive between buildings that just make any criticisms of it relatively mute, at least in my eyes

Hobbs is in the movie too but he’s taken out fairly early on and his role is vastly reduced compared to the last 2. This feels like a consequence of the “feud” between Diesel and Johnson. Where do I stand? I could not give a single f*ck. I enjoy Dwayne more in movies, and I have a few movies with him in them lined up as guilty pleasures for next year, but if 2-3 proved anything, it’s that Vin Diesel is the heart of this franchise, whether you respect his particular acting choices or not.

Speaking of 3 this is the first of the movies to feature a cameo from Sean Boswell, I don’t know how but he doesn’t look much different than he did back in 3. I wasn’t exactly a fan of him in 3 but I would be open to see him again, especially as he offers a different perspective when it comes to family, given most of his are assholes.

Family is a driving force behind these movies, particularly since 5, but it’s been hinted at even before then. There are 2 major character arcs that are explored in this movie. The first is with Brian and Mia, how Brian begins missing the danger and how he’s gotta be able to settle down now he has another baby on the way. It’s surprising how well this works with Walker’s death and Brian being retired at the end of the movie.

The second arc is that of Letty’s memory loss. I’m not entirely sure what I can say about it. I’m glad that they didn’t lift the consequences of it straight away, but maybe it would’ve been more interesting if they didn’t do it at all. Don’t get me wrong, the way they handled it was acceptable, and I’m glad it didn’t end up with the Generator Rex syndrome of Six keeping his memory loss but only so they could reference that he didn’t remember something as a joke. But her gradual regaining of her memory, despite several scenes in the movie involving her wanting to move past it to become her new self, felt like a bit of a copout. Still, I like that Dom isn’t trying to seduce or force himself on her.

I don’t really have much to say about Tej or Roman, Roman’s insecurities are more about comic relief than contributing to the plot and Tej is saddled with the latest addition to the cast, Ramsay (Nathalie Emmanuel) (for the record, although Gal Gadot is credited in the opening credits, she exists in a photo and maybe some flashbacks but that’s about it her character is dead until they retcon otherwise)

I haven’t talked much about the plot have I? It’s one of the weaker aspects of this. Deckard Shaw is great, but the problem is the fetch quest for Mister Nobody isn’t really necessary, they don’t need to find out where Shaw is, he shows up wherever they are, lure him into a trap and don’t piss off the guy with a private army Shaw can manipulate.

It does allow for some really cool set-pieces, the truck heist is really cool with a combination of driving, punching and shooting, and some stunt-work that kinda reminds me of an Uncharted movie (Sony, Tom Holland, take notes) but it’s not exactly a work of Shakespeare and I never expected it to be.

Furious 7 continues on the trend of relatively strong action movies that have come since Fast 5, and with some great effects work and subtlety they tactfully handled the death of one of their lead actors. Some say the Fate of the Furious is where that streak comes to an end, join me next time and we’ll find out

Rating 80/100