Furious
7
Furious
7 has so much adrenaline and testosterone that women who see the
movie could become pregnant.
If you saw the extra scene at the end of Fast & Furious 6,
you already know the story. Jason Statham stars as Deckard Shaw –
the very angry and vengeful brother of the dude the Fast and Furious
gang defeated in the last movie.
Deckard Shaw wants to exact revenge on Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul
Walker) and the rest of them, and he has a particular set of skills to
make it happen, since he is a wanted former Black Ops soldier with
knowledge of secrets so nasty, Black Ops have been trying to kill him,
but they can’t (because he is Jason Statham).
Just when it looks like Shaw is about to finish off Dom, a new,
mysterious figure steps in. Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) tells Dom he can
give the gang what they need to get rid of Shaw, but they have to do
him a favor first. Some hacker has developed a system to track down
anyone on the planet, but the hacker has been kidnapped by some
evildoers, who plan to use the system for … well … evil!
Can Dom, Brian and the gang find the hacker?
Was “Mr. Nobody” the best name these writers could come up
with?
Seriously?
In Fast & Furious 6, they took on a tank! A Tank!
How in the name of Vin Diesel is Furious 7 supposed to top
that?
OH MY GOD THEY DID!!!!!
If you didn’t already know what you were getting in Furious 7,
director James Wan takes the first ten minutes of the film to deliver
about 100 women in scandalous bikinis, a brutal fight scene between The
Rock and Jason Statham, a drag race between two fast and furious cars,
and Vin Diesel looking all tough and vulnerable because Dom still loves
the amnesia-addled Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), along with plenty of
platitudes about how it’s all about family.
Wan and the team deliver an action-packed movie with car chases through
forests, buses diving off the edges of cliffs, stuff being blown up by
every weapon you can imagine and some good old fashioned street
brawling. It is an action extravaganza in every sense of the phrase as
they push the envelope further, faster and more furious than you can
ever remember.
While Furious 7 is visually stunning, Diesel should back off
those claims about how it should win an Oscar for Best Picture. Writer
Chris Morgan is much better at bringing the characters to life with
some deadpan reaction dialogue when they are faced with a stunning turn
of events, plenty of bonding moments among the family and one-liners
that work because we know and love the figures on the screen. When it
comes to storytelling, Morgan isn't doing as well.
Furious 7 feels like two ideas slapped
together. We have the whole vengeance plot as Shaw and Dom each try to
knock the other one off, but it doesn't get enough attention and
development to be anything special.
Then, the audience has a new plot about the hacker and the secret
device that must be recaptured, but the two stories only intersect when
someone realizes we haven’t seen Statham on screen enough.
It’s far from an organic melding of stories, but I have a feeling
many of you don’t care.
Nor will many of you care about the extended final showdown that keeps
going on and on and on. It is quite a spectacle to see them blow Los
Angeles to smithereens, but no In-N-Out Burger locations were harmed
during filming, so we can watch safely and without guilt.
Along with being an entertaining film, Wan pushes every audience member
to the brink of tears with a touching, heartfelt good-bye to the late
Paul Walker in the movie’s final moments. It’s time to pass
the tissues.
Furious
7 is Rated PG-13 for prolonged frenetic
sequences of violence, action and mayhem, suggestive content and brief
strong language.
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