Movie Reaction: Furious 7

Past Movie Reactions

Formula: Fast and Furious 6 ^ Fast Five*

Why I Saw It: I call it The Dark Knight Effect. Sequel that looked to up the stakes + Final screen appearance of an actor who died + Massive box office potential.

Cast: The Fast & Furious franchise has cherry picked its cast for a while. There's turnover, both intended and not. What they have left now is the right mix of toughness and comedy, camp and heart. So, you have Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and a little bit of Jordana Brewster from the original core. Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, and Dwayne Johnson have been picked up along the way. Nathalie Emmanuel represents this movie's new blood. Jason Statham and Djimon Hounsou are the big bads. And, Kurt Russell shows up as a covert government super agent who I'm sure will be used for future missions/employment. The only knock I have against the cast is not a new one. Everyone acts like they're in a different movie. Diesel and Robriguez are super serious. Johnson is in a campy super hero movie. Ludacris and Tyrese are in The Italian Job. It's only as distracting as you let it be, but it's there to pick at if you want.

Plot: If you can track what is going on with this series' mythology, good on you. It all makes a loose sense and that's all that it needs. This movie finally catches us up to the present with the events of Tokyo Drift occurring at the beginning (Are we in the future or is Tokyo Drift in the future?!?!). The driving force of this movie is two part: 1) You have Jason Statham as the brother of Luke Evans from the last movie, out for revenge and 2) you have Hounsou as a super villain trying to get a hold of a program called God's Eye, which is basically the computer from Eagle Eye without the sentience. What you need to know is that there's car chases and explosions throughout with a few jokes mixed in. If you need more than that, your are watching the wrong movie.

Elephant in the Room: How do they handle Paul Walker's death? Most of Walker's scenes were filmed before he died. They didn't have to change the story significantly to work around his absence (or if they did, they edited it masterfully). He gets a proper send off at the end. In fact, he gets one of the more touching farewells on any character in any franchise. The big thing I want to drive home is that [SPOILER ALERT, I GUESS] his death isn't worked into the movie. That would've been crass and I applaud the producers and writers for that.

To Sum Things Up:
The Fast and the Furious is one of the more confounding stories in modern film. It's on its seventh movie, which is going to be by far the highest grossing entry yet. The difference between the first and seventh movies is night and day, yet they feel of the same whole. In short, the franchise has grown and changed as needed. There's a oneupsmanship to this movie which is getting insane. The fifth movie had the stuff with the train. The sixth takes down a plane. Naturally, this movie gets even crazier. At several points, I expected for one of the cars to transform into Bumblebee. The level of mayhem is Michael Bay explosive and that is a compliment. I don't know where they go from here, but this is good escapist fun.

*Has any franchise been this inconsistent with the naming structure?
The Fast and the Furious
2 Fast 2 Furious (loves using those '2's)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (drops the 3 and refranchises)
Fast and Furious (No need for numbers or articles)
Fast Five (But not furious)
Fast & Furious 6 (Trying to go for efficiency)
Furious 7 (But not fast)
The only thing I can think of to compare is Rambo (First Blood. Rambo: First Blood Part II. Rambo III. Rambo)

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend