Fast & Furious 7 (M)
Director: James Wan (Saw)
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell.
Rating: **1/2
Thank you, and good nitrous
You can safely take your time looking for a park outside before you park yourself in front of Fast & Furious 7.
The first half-hour is as horribly hackneyed as this famously fuel-injected franchise has ever been.
The opening act doesn’t quite blow as hard as anything that transpired in the series nadir Tokyo Drift, but it does go worryingly close.
There stands Vin Diesel, haltingly forming sentences in that faraway-fart-in-an-abandoned-mineshaft voice of his, gruffly greeting all current members of the F&F team, and saying random stuff about “family.”
Tribute ... The late Paul Walker in a scene from Fast & Furious 7. Source: Supplied
Once all the unnecessary reminders of who’s who in the F&F zoo are done with, the movie swiftly begins earning its keep in undeniably spectacular fashion.
The later F&F sequels have paid their way by pinning everything on audaciously ridiculous and irresistibly adrenalised set-piece stunt sequences.
Two of these stand-alone scenes lodged right in the middle of Fast & Furious 7 are nothing less than masterpieces of modern action filmmaking.
The first takes place in the skies over Eastern Europe, where the F&F team reverse their vehicles out of an aircraft carrier cruising at high altitude, and proceed to parachute their rides smoothly on to a winding mountain pass.
Once on terra firma, the ante is upped even further with a frenetic extended chase on and off the road. Somehow this incredible sequence also incorporates next-gen parkour and old-school fistfights without any driver touching the brakes.
Airborne cars? ... Fast & Furious 7 has ‘em. Source: Supplied
The second must-see stretch of Fast & Furious 7 features an expensive sports car travelling through the upper storeys of three glassy skyscrapers in Dubai. All laws of velocity, geometry and air-traffic control are so flagrantly disobeyed, you just won’t be able to wipe the dopey grin off your face.
Let’s not bother addressing the story here. The screenwriters clearly didn’t, so why should we?
All that needs to be known is that a rogue assassin is on the loose, and out to terminally throttle Dom Toretto (Diesel) and his feet-to-the-floor friends.
This villain is played as a three-way collision between the Terminator, Hannibal Lecter and the entire cast of The Expendables by the one and only Jason Statham.
Veteran man-of-action Kurt Russell racks up some solid points as a wise-cracking government agent known as Mr Nobody.
While Dwayne Johnson is used relatively sparingly as Toretto’s frenemy-turned-actual-buddy Hobbs, he saves the day for the non-stunt sections of Fast and Furious 7 on several occasions.
The film ends on an uncharacteristically sombre, yet truly heartfelt note with an epilogue touchingly saluting the contribution of franchise stalwart Paul Walker, who passed away in tragic circumstances before shooting was completed last year.
*** for more reviews, news and updates, follow Leigh Paatsch on Twitter at @leighpaatsch, on Instagram at leighpaatsch, and Tumblr at Tired and Promotional***
Have you seen the plot? ... Vin Diesel and Jordana Brewster search for meaning in Fast & Furious 7. Source: Supplied
