Sunday, April 5, 2015

Movie Review: Furious 7

There are some staples of Fast and Furious movies: fast cars, scantily clad people, senseless fighting and harrowing action sequences.  All of these things were in high form in this latest entry and I can’t say it wasn’t what I expected.  The most unexpected thing in this movie was the number of people who were at the 9.30 show.  It was sold out, and on Easter Sunday no less.

The movie leaves off where the last movie ended, with the antagonist of Furious 6 having his older brother vow vengeance on those that put his brother in the hospital.  In SPOILER fashion, the Asian guy gets it first, the audience sees his mangled body before the Jason Statham character promises to come for Vin Diesel and co.  The next few hours are basically a culmination of sequences where the characters barely survive all kinds of insane combinations of things, such as cars being ejected from a plane and slamming a million dollar car through one building into another from forty floors up.

The cinematography for the movie was, at times sickening, and at other times just unbelievable.  There was this shaky cam thing that kept going on during fight sequences and it had me reeling at times.  The cousin I brought with me (yeah, different cousins, how many do I have?), commented on it and I was like, you know, you’re right, it did make me feel a little off.  The bigger action sequences with the cars were done at a different angle and those cars are just outrageous.  What I wouldn’t give to just try those once.  Though, I have a mustang, so I could soup it up, but I think that might end in far more speeding tickets than I’d like.

I can’t say this was a great movie, or that the story was original or the acting top notch.  I am always impressed by how well Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson (the rock) do comedy so well.  Michelle Rodriguez as the really only powerful female lead is always fun to watch and she has an entertaining fight sequence between her and Ronda Rousey.  I’m glad I saw the movie and the montage at the end of all of Walker’s scenes was a tear-jerker.  If you’ve watched a few of these movies, you need to see this latest one.  If you haven’t seen any of these movies, you may not feel like you missed much, but these movies are something of our culture that shouldn’t be missed.