REVIEW : Furious 7 (2015)

Cars don't fly, mate. But in the magical universe in which the Fast & Furious franchise is set in, they sure do. All. The damn. Time.

Former Black Ops agent Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is out for blood, namely the blood of those who put his baby brother into a coma in Fast 6. Starting with Han (Sung Kang) who's death we've already witness in Tokyo Drift, post-credits scene in the last movie, and once more in this, he's ready to crush the rest of the team one by one. So what do you do when a highly trained ex-military psychopath is hot on your heels? Put the wife and kids somewhere safe, then take matters into your own hands of course. But things are not that bad since their goals align with the government's, they have help in the form of Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). I mean, Dom (Vin Diesel) and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) may be indestructible, but they still need unimportant military personnel to act as cannon fodder. 

So off they go, Dom, Brian (Paul Walker), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), driving cars out of planes, driving cars out of skyscrapers before crashing into another skyscraper in Abu Dhabi, miraculously without anyone in the crew dying. You know, business as usual. 

Furious 7: Making more miracles than Jesus ever did.

I could spend a lot of time and a lot of words picking apart the logic that holds this movie together; things that don't make sense, or cases where common sense is apparently not that common. In the ultimate showdown, the crew is hunted by Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou) in a military-grade chopper on the streets of Los Angeles. Here's the thing: no government would have allowed an unauthorised military chopper roam any city at street-level, not to mention that we are talking about 'Murica over here. You and I both know that it would have been shot out of the skies before it could even reach the borders of the country.

And lets talk about Dom. Here's a tip: when you have a very obvious advantage over your mortal enemy, chucking it out of the window for the sake of your bravado is not the way to go. At the final face-off, Dom had a loaded shotgun pointed at Shaw's head. He could have fired it and be done with that pain in his side for once and for all. But what does he do instead? Empty his gun to the skies and challenge Shaw to a brawl, mano a mano.

Could have been avoided if Dom had just fired his gun at the target. Then again. where's the fun in that?

But nope, not going to pick it to shreds. Nope. Absolutely not. You do not go into a Fast & Furious movie expecting realism. In fact, action movies like these are the last place you should bring your thinking caps to, lest you end up with a piercing headache.

Before that, can we just talk about Letty getting her memories back just by having a car crash through the roof? I don't think that's how amnesia works.

Okay. Sorry. I'll shut up now.

Tej Parker and Roman Pearce, arguably the best thing in the entire movie.

All that aside, Furious 7 might not adhere much to the rules of logic, overall it is still an entertaining ride, even if it's a little long with over-the-top and drawn-out action sequences. If that's your thing, by all means, go for it and you probably won't be disappointed.

The people behind the franchise could be bashed for a lot of things, but if there's one thing they deserve a standing ovation for, it is how they decided to handle Paul Walker's character after his death back in 2013. If you don't already know, the cast was only halfway done with filming when Walker died in a tragic car crash. They could have killed Brian O'Conner as well, in fact in Furious 7, you would have held your breath more than once, thinking to yourself, "Is this it? Is this the end for O'Conner?" But no, just like Dominic and Hobbs, O'Conner proves to be indestructible. Instead, they opt to have Paul Walker's brothers stand-in for the unfinished scenes and with the magical fairy dust that is CGI, it felt like Paul was always still there.

As Brian drives off onto another path, an epilogue with montages from previous movies of him is played as a tribute to the late actor. For Paul, indeed. He may not walk among us anymore, but at least in the world of Fast & Furious, Paul Walker is alive and well. In Brian O'Connor, he is immortal.

See you again, Paul.

I rate it : 6/10 stars

THE GOOD : That last scene tho

THE BAD : Pretty much any trope in any action movie you've ever seen is in this movie. All of them.

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...would like to watch The Rock vs The Transporter.
• ...would like to watch Vin Diesel vs The Transporter.

• ...just want to bid a last farewell to Paul Walker/Brian O'Conner.

FURIOUS 7 (2015)

Genre : Action

Runtime : 137 mins

Director : James Wan

Cast : Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Jason Statham