Fast and Furious 7 review

Title: Fast and Furious 7

Director: James Wan

Cast: Paul Walker

         Vin Diesel

         Dwayne Johnson

         Jason Statham

Certificate: 12A

Run Time: 139 minutes

Fast and Furious 7 (or Furious 7, as it is called in America) is the 7th instalment in the long running action franchise that started out as a B-movie about street racing and became a sort of ridiculous action phenomenon with the release of the always enjoyable Fast and Furious 5. James Wan, famous mostly for his horror films (such as Insidious 1 & 2 and the Conjuring) has taken over from Justin Lin as director for this film, and this is in  no way a disadvantage to the film, quite the contrary actually; Wan's clever camerawork shines through in some of the action scenes in this film, notably so is one of the opening scenes in which Dwayne "the rock" Johnson fights Jason Statham's baddy in the form of Deckard Shaw (brother of Owen Shaw, the villain of FF6). 

In the vein of This is Spinal Tap, FF7 turns the lunacy up to 11 as Tyrese Gibson's, Roman Pierce states in the film, "this takes crazy to a whole other level". Never have truer words been spoken with regards to the Fast franchise. Crazy really is the only way describe the film, as liberties are taken with physics that would make both Einstein and Newton turn over in their graves. Then again, this sort of ridiculous stunt is what has become expected of this franchise. This really comes in the form of one scene around a third of the way into the film, in which our team or "family" as Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto loves to make clear, in which cars are dropped from a plane flying over a cliff with the intention of intercepting an armoured truck carrying precious cargo. From the base jumping cars to Paul Walker running up the side of a bus falling off of a cliff, you will believe these characters are truly immortal before the halfway point.

The clear new addition to the cast is Jason Statham, who is clearly having a ball of a time playing the big baddy in this instalment. With Diesel and Johnson both having their chance to fight with the new villain hell bent on vengeance, the testosterone levels on set must've been record breaking. As usual, the action scenes involving Diesel and Johnson really do induce an adrenaline fuelled euphoria in their audience members. But this leads me to my first real criticism of the film; the amount of action. Despite the fact that some of the scenes without action feel like a Corona sponsored soap opera, the amount of action in this film, mixed with the almost 2 and a half hour run time, can make the film at times seem slow, especially when the audience knows that these characters can basically get away with anything and not get hurt. 

This problem main becomes apparent during the 2nd act of the film which seems as if some scenes were mad just for the sake of being there or because they looked cool, most notably, an action scene in which Vin Diesel and Paul Walker help Kurt Russell attack Statham's hiding place. There is no denying that this scene certainly looks very cool, but feels a little pointless in relation to the rest of he film. Furhtermore, the final action sequence goes on for just a bit too long, in which we have three separate action sequences occurring simultaneously.

As many may have read elsewhere by now, the final sequence of this film will put a lump in everyones throats as we are given a genuinely moving and incredibly sweet obituary to Paul Walker, as we see the journey his character had taken through all 7 films to the tune of the now No1 song "See you again" by Charlie Puth and Wiz Khalifa. All in all, this is yet another incredibly dumb but ultimately exhilerating action film from the Fast franchise.

8/10