Furious 7
Directed by: James Wan
Written by: Chris Morgan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, Jason Statham
Action/Crime/Thriller - 137 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Apr 2015
Written by: Chris Morgan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, Jason Statham
Action/Crime/Thriller - 137 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 2 Apr 2015
The Fast and the Furious franchise shuffles closer to Expendables territory. They are starting to share actors, wrinkles, and a tongue-in-cheek/wink-wink sentimentality. The story and action sequences are written ridiculous on purpose provoking shock and awe at the expense of narrative sense. To please its salivating fan base, each film in the series must outdo its predecessor in physics-defying, eyeball-popping stunts and the franchise is starting to paint itself into a corner. Furious 7 contains multiple, extended action sequences and two specific stunts which will define the film; you’ve probably already seen these particular feats in the previews. Furious 7 is insane. Furious 7 is fun as hell.
As a writer, what do you throw at the heroes after they defeat the ultimate bad guy? Invent an even more ruthless, psychopathic brother. Chris Morgan, writing his fifth consecutive Fast and Furious script, improves each film in shoehorning in ‘out of this world’ vehicular stunts but maintains a glaring lack of authenticity concerning villains, dramatic arcs for his lead characters, and holding steady with a coherent, logical narrative. The story is built around the stunts. The filmmakers want the film’s centerpieces to be cars parachuting out the back of a C-17 and leapfrogging from skyscraper to skyscraper. To get the cars and characters to these points, Morgan employs outrageously unnecessary side plots, new supporting characters, and unashamedly helps himself to a buffet line full of story ideas from recent film and television.
As a writer, what do you throw at the heroes after they defeat the ultimate bad guy? Invent an even more ruthless, psychopathic brother. Chris Morgan, writing his fifth consecutive Fast and Furious script, improves each film in shoehorning in ‘out of this world’ vehicular stunts but maintains a glaring lack of authenticity concerning villains, dramatic arcs for his lead characters, and holding steady with a coherent, logical narrative. The story is built around the stunts. The filmmakers want the film’s centerpieces to be cars parachuting out the back of a C-17 and leapfrogging from skyscraper to skyscraper. To get the cars and characters to these points, Morgan employs outrageously unnecessary side plots, new supporting characters, and unashamedly helps himself to a buffet line full of story ideas from recent film and television.
The drama the seventh time around involves Brian (Paul Walker, 2014’s Brick Mansions) chafing a bit being a stay at home dad who misses the action and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez, 2013’s Machete Kills) slowly recovering from amnesia and suffering from some form of PTSD. Explosions and chaos set off by the arrival of the new bad guy, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham, 2014’s The Expendables 3), elbow aside these melodramatic bits of angst. The core audience will not mind, they are not here for emotional journeys, they want revving engines, howling bravado, and Vin Diesel (2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy) staring off into the distance vowing revenge. In the previous F & F films, Diesel actually moved his facial muscles a bit and employed tone inflection. Now, Diesel is as emotive as a two by four and delivers every line in a low growl aided by squinty eyes.
The gang gets back together at a funeral which spurs an overdone and heavy-handed refrain about “no more funerals”. Everyone knows walking into the theater this is Paul Walker’s last film before he died. Walker only completed half his scenes which were then rewritten and finished with a blend of Paul’s two brothers as stand-ins and voiceover artists, CGI, and unused shots from previous films. Furious 7 is a tribute and farewell film in many ways, especially at the end when they go for your tear ducts. It is a well-crafted and appreciative send off, but the persistent refrain of “no more funerals” is too strong when the feeling should have been a tad softer.
The rest of the familiar faces pop up including the underwritten Chris “Ludacris” Bridges and Jordana Brewster and the most overwritten and obnoxious character in every film, Roman (Tyrese Gibson, 2011’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon). Continuing a nauseating tradition, Tyrese still gets the worst lines, gives one of the worst performances, and seems to relish playing the fool. Since a couple co-stars perished at the end of Fast & Furious 6, the script invents some new and gratuitous supporting characters with Kurt Russell (2013’s The Art of the Steal) playing a shadowy government agent with the eye-rolling name Mr. Nobody and the world’s most capable hacker, Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel, HBO’s Game of Thrones). Mr. Nobody wants to get his hands on a capability which may as well be the omniscient A.I. program from CBS’s Person of Interest. This program will also help the Furious gang locate their bad guy. This sets up the cars parachuting out of a plane centerpiece but the plot points leading us here are superfluous at best.
Enter another villain, one we didn’t know was coming and one which need not be here at all, Djimon Hounsou (2014’s Seventh Son) as the most well-armed, technologically advanced mercenary in the world. He throttles Tyrese hands down earning the worst actor award with the most atrocious dialogue and all around worst written character. There is a lot of padding in Furious 7 to achieve its long running time and most of it comes from a guy who doesn’t need to be here. Jason Statham’s universal soldier is more than enough villain for the film. Ah, but director James Wan, taking a break from his horror film realm, squeezes in even more needless cameos including Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, UFC badass Ronda Rousey, and a Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift drop by which is Chris Morgan’s attempt to tie in that outlier film from 2006 to try and prove he knew how it tied in the whole time. I don’t believe that for a second.
It’s the seventh film in the series; the sixth sequel. You know what you’re going to get. All the bells and whistles are here: the good guys with the cheeky one-liners, the bad guys ensuring we get extreme stunts and fireballs, and Vin Diesel doing his best to maintain his monotone and thousand-yard menacing stare. Losing Paul Walker should not be too much of a challenge if the studio decides to press ahead with more Fast and Furious since we have more than enough evidence to prove the franchise will hop, skip, and jump around logic and reason to set up just one more death-defying, tour de force trick. The films have their die-hard fans and they appear to be as loyal as any other film franchise out there. Fast and Furious has a yellow light in front of it and it looks like it is speeding up to get through it.
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