As mentioned in the Walker thread, I went to see FURIOUS 7 last night and loved it. These movies are just so entertaining, and this one is no exception. Firtly, if you're worried about the Direction not being handled by the amazing Justin Lin....don't, James Wan seems like he studied at the School of Lin, and everything works as well as Lin's films...and Wan even goes above that to throw in his own flourishes (he likes to affix the camera to shit that's falling or turning during a fight so it follows the action; The Rock is fighting and he and the bad guy get knocked over a couch...the camera is strapped to the couch so all three change direction).
Statham is basically channeling his Transporter badass in the villain role and it works. Surprisingly Kurt Russel shows up and that was super cool.
All the gravity-defying, physics-defying stunt and car action work is well on display and is a friggin blast throughout. The Abu Dhabi scenes in particular are great.
Soundtrack is badass.
Unlike Gina Carano, Ronda Rousey can't deliver lines for shit...but goddamn she gets a fantastic fight sequence and the power on display is amazing and well worth it.
The Paul Walker stuff is all handled well and surprisingly he'd shot MOST of the film before his death, you can only really see his brothers used in wide angle shots in the 3rd act...everything else was Paul.
The ending is bittersweet and sad, and there is one bit of cinematography that made the tears flow for me. Luckily my wife was sobbing beside me so I was not alone in being overcome with emotion.
I will say this, I thought they'd planned to bring Lucas Black's character from TOKYO DRIFT into the franchise proper and onto Dom's team as a replacement to Paul...but they don't, and his bit realy is just a cameo where he explained to Dom what happened to Han.
Anyways, another great entry and can't wait for film 8 (Which Diesel was talking about already that it goes to New York City), and see what's next. This was apparently the first film in a third trilgy within the franchise, and it does actually feel that way world-building-wise.
EDIT: Oh and the movie is doing bananas business, the box office is already somewhere north of $125 million and the math puts it by Monday at over $140 million.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 04 April 2015 - 12:31 PM
"When the last tree has fallen, and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no." ~Aurora
"Someone will always try to sell you despair, just so they don't feel alone." ~Ursula Vernon