Fast and Furious 7 Review

Fast and Furious 7 is almost exactly what you might expect it to be yet I feel describing it like that is doing the film a disservice. It is in fact a relentless ride of impeccable action and fantastically over the top sequences that is held up by a cast who bounce off of each other.

Something that has been key to the most recent films in the series has been the action set pieces. Five culminates in the crew driving a large safe around the streets of Rio, Six ends with an incredible take down of a military plane on what might be the world longest run way. Well let me tell you seven tops both of those sequences the first sequence is teased in the trailer. The crew parachute their cars out of a plane to land on a piece of road on a mountain to take down a crew of terrorists who have taken a hacker hostage. This sequence is genuinely great it roars along  and ticks all the boxes in terms of the entertainment that you might want from this series. James Wan handles this sequences with absolute precision whilst the sequences moves quickly you constantly understand what is going on. This is James Wan’s first film in the franchise and I have to admit I found it quite hard to see what made his direction different from that of Justin Lin in the previous entries but he handles the film very well and perfectly fits the style of the films. Whilst the mountain sequence in the film is the best in terms of storytelling I think my favourite  segment of the film has to be the part in Abu Dhabai just for the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing.

What also makes these films is the crew themselves and whilst the crew is a bit smaller in this film (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson sit most of the film out, Han and Gisele are gone, Mia is also missing for most of the film) the repartee between the cast is still on top form. Tej and Roman still have their comic bickering. In fact I have to say Tyrese Gibson stole the show for me and it was definitely Roman drawing the most laughs out of the audience I was with. Dom (Vin Diesel) still goes on about family every fifth line. Whilst he isn’t in the film much when The Rock shows up he more than steals the show; “I am the cavalry” is a line sure to go down in pop culture history. It’s the fast we know but it’s also the fast we love. There is one element that overhangs the films though and that is the tragic death of Paul Walker. Walker died November 2013 about six months before the film was suppose to come out this left half of his scenes unfilmed. The filmmakers got past this by using a variety of stand-ins and creating a CGI Paul Walker. I have to say never for a moment did I notice what they were doing and technically it was entirely convincing. Yet most importantly they got the emotions just right. I won’t spoil what happens but rest assured Brian isn’t killed off for shock value but ultimately the film celebrates Walker and mourns his loss ultimately underpinning the family message of the franchise.

Fast and Furious 7 more than delivers in terms of entertainment between the large elaborate action pieces and the small character moments but it also perfectly manages to handle the loss that damaged the crew on and off screen.