Come on now, you didn’t think I’d forgotten about these guys, did you?
After thoroughly enjoying Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, sadly I come to you with bad news: this movie is garbage.
As a sort of follow on from the last movie, Furious 7 takes us on yet another bad guy crushing adventure. Here, the gang are out to take down the brother of the guy who they put in a coma in the last instalment. Confusing? Ridiculous? Oh yeah.
I’ve seen other people claim that this series is now just a parody of what it once was, as the producers have realised that it’s gone on for far too long at this point. If that’s the case, then someone really needs to tell Vin Diesel, because he’s definitely still under the assumption that this is some ‘real acting’. This franchise is now a simple cash cow for Universal Pictures; that’s clear and simple.
The stunts, although visually impressive, are just ridiculous now. Cars falling out of a plane and parachuting to the ground? Really? This is the first movie in the franchise that is completely silly from start to finish. In my review of Fast 6, I applauded the stunts, as although they were becoming slightly more unrealistic, they were still somewhat plausible and well-executed. In this one however, other than some exceptional performances by the stunt team, the stunts themselves were downright nonsensical. Not only do cars parachute to earth, but they also fly at full speed between skyscrapers in Dubai… Yeesh.
Acting is at an all-time low in this entry too. Apart from Kurt Russell (and of course Dwayne Johnson, who can do no wrong even with an awful cast-shattering gag), it’s bloody terrible. Jason Statham should have taken the Golden Raspberry for worst actor for his performance, so imagine my surprise when he wasn’t even nominated. He is wooden whilst still being campy, and somehow manages to offend every British person in existence by playing the caricature of a hard-faced Cockney.
Not only were the performances iffy to say the least, the editing was the most distracting thing I’ve ever seen in a movie. Technically, it was super choppy and headache-inducing. Length-wise, they kept in a hell of a lot of stuff that did not need to be there. The movie ends up at a way-too-long 137 minutes even though I have no doubt that many people gave up after the first 60.
It’s horrifically sad what happened to Paul Walker, so I’m glad they gave him a nice send off plot-wise… It’s just a shame that they couldn’t make a better movie as a tribute to him.
2 Fast 2 Furious has a reputation of being the worst movie in this franchise, but personally, I think this was even poorer. (I’m only giving it 2 Qs for those poor stunt people and my main man, Dwayne).
Furious 7 is available to stream on Netflix in the UK.
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