Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Fast and/or Furious franchise (besides
its increasingly ludicrous installment titling conventions) is that they have
somehow taken their formerly poor quality and elevated it into something that,
if not legitimately great, is a hell of a lot of fun. The first four films are of varying quality
but have always existed on the dumber, duller side of the spectrum, their
continued existence only justified by filling a niche for dude-bros who love
fast cars on the big screen. However,
something changed in the fifth film, which left the underground racing origins
of the series behind in favor of an action heist plot, and the action elements
have only been emphasized ever since.
This has led to an escalation in the last three films that has served
not to make the films any more intelligent, but to make them fun enough where
the their lack of depth doesn’t matter compared to the pure visceral thrill of
their existence. Furious 7 continues this tradition and ends up being what is
probably the best in the series.
Continuing from the events of Fast & Furious 6, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) swears revenge
against Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and crew (Paul Walker, Ludacris, Tyrese
Gibson, and Michelle Rodriguez) for leaving his villainous brother in a coma,
attacking them one by one with intense black operative skills. Dom is approached by secret agent Mr. Nobody
(Kurt Russell) to track down a surveillance MacGuffin that will allow the crew
to find Shaw, and Dom agrees on the condition that Mr. Nobody will assist in
taking Shaw down.
In all honesty, the plot to this film is full of gaping
holes, most notably that the whole purpose of finding the program in order to
find Shaw is undermined by the fact that Shaw appears in every major action
scene, making the task of hunting him down a complete non-sequitur. However, the plot is not the reason anyone
sees a recent Fast and/or Furious
film: it’s the ridiculous action setpieces, and boy does the seventh
installment deliver. As awesome as the
tank battle from part six was, it cannot compete against skydiving cars, jumps
between moving vehicles, drone attacks, missile barrages, and driving a
brakeless car through a skyscraper dozens of stories into the air. Previous films in this franchise were
hampered by their cost-saving transition into computer-generated stuntwork, but
now that the films are so far removed from reality as to justify that
transition, the cartoony nature of such scenes feels welcome precisely because
they are so unbelievable.
It’s also worth mentioning that this may be the only
ensemble action franchise to be predominately headlined by people of color and
have female characters with defined personalities and actual agency within the
plot. Considering that other franchises
greatly lack such empowering diversity (like a certain Cinematic Universe), the
fact that such a cast remains intact and hasn't become Hollywood whitewashed is
astounding and hopefully will endure in future installments.
Furious 7 ends
with a tribute to the late Paul Walker, using his character’s transition into family
life and out of the franchise as a metaphor for Walker’s premature demise. It’s a touching moment that fans of this
fifteen year franchise will appreciate, and it really hammers home that the
franchise’s boast of the value of family and loyalty is not empty, but is an
expression of the cast’s actual dedication to one another. Though Walker may not have been the greatest
actor, his presence will clearly be missed by those who worked with him, and
with this as his final film, I’m happy to say he left on a high note. If you’re looking for some pure dumb fun, Furious 7 won’t let you down.
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