Review: Furious 7

Furious 7

     Furious 7 is the latest installment in what has become, in my mind, the ultimate American movie franchise.  The bad guy from the last one has a bigger and badder brother who is out for revenge.  This time their adventures take them everywhere from Tokyo to the Middle East to Los Angeles.

     I have one major complaint so I'll just get that out of the way.  Iggy Azalea was in the movie - which was great - but it was just a cameo.  I wanted a role!  On the other hand Kurt Russell is the other big time addition to the franchise this time around and he did great.

     Newcomer to the franchise, director James Wan, does his best Justin Lin impression (director of the previous four) but the producers were wise enough to let Mr. Wan run with a bit of his own visual style, and franchise vets will see the differences.  This is not a bad thing.

     The stunts were bigger than ever for Furious 7, and that's saying something with this franchise.  If I'm honest, it didn't produce the ear-to-ear smile for a straight fifteen minutes at the end the way Fast Five did, but this movie still had its glorious moments, and loads of action.

     There comes a point where even I get tired of Vin Diesel going on about family, or fist fights that seem to last for hours (look me in the eye and tell me one solid punch from Dwayne Johnson wouldn't knock you out), or gun fights where the first hundred shots fired are misses, but if any movie has license to commit these tropes it's this one.  And it works because Furious 7 never takes itself all that seriously!  If you don't believe me just listen to Tyrese Gibson's lines.

     Unfortunately the movie did have some restructuring issues in the wake of Paul Walker's death.  It is apparent that they had to make do with what they had in a lot of ways, but all is frankly forgiven.  The tribute to Paul at the end is really something.

     After Paul died, they changed things around and decided to continue some of his scenes using a tricky combination of existing footage, existing audio, several body doubles, Paul Walker's own brothers, and full digital face replacement.  The result is VERY impressive.  You can tell when Brian O'Connor is fake or real on screen, but the only reason you can tell is that his lines are suddenly off screen and they don't show his face as much.  There is one shot near the end that must have been fake, but it looked one hundred percent real.  The work they did is truly amazing.

      Big Shot Critic