Furious 7
I realized before the opening credits even started, that these films have become the “definition” of mindless popcorn movies, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! I was not a fan of the original 2001 “Fast and the Furious” movie, I thought it was okay, but nothing really fantastic to me. I do remember being upset that these movies were getting made, but I wasn’t seeing a “Speed Racer” movie.
Well, in 2009 I finally got to see my beloved cartoon made into live action movie, and then it bombed at the box office, so that was that. Now I’m proud to realize that these sequels are what the “Speed Racer franchise” should have been, an over the top action adventure that centers around racing cars.
The old gang is here (minus the characters that died in the last film) enjoying their freedom and getting their lives back to normal. This episode brings Jason Statham playing an ex-special ops agent who’s hunting the gang to get revenge for his brother, who was the villain in part 6. Statham is a great bad ass villain here, and you can tell he means business. Kurt Russell also joins the party as the head of a Government agency who recruits Dom, Brian, and the crew for a fast paced heist (as they’ve proven in the last few movies, are their specialty) with the reward being some help for them to become hunters and stopping Statham before he wipes the out.
The logic makes absolutely no sense, but it’s all about the chase scenes and the stunts, and this movie shockingly ups the ante even further than the past episodes. It’s a big, fat, crowd pleasing action movie that gives you exactly what it promises.
Things I really liked about it;
1) the tie-in to “Tokyo Drift ” was fantastic.
2) Nathalie Emmanuel at the beach
3) Kurt Russell with two guns
4) ALL the hand to hand fight scenes
Although the dialog was sometimes groan inducing, you really do care enough about the characters to make even the most ridiculous elements acceptable.
The handling of a special tribute to Paul Walker at the end of the story was very subtle and tastefully done. That being said, I can’t believe that this movie was made by the same guy that did “Saw” “Insidious” and “The Conjouring” He BETTER come back for Fast Furious 8.
