Written By: Mike Agostinelli
I’m just going to be up front: this movie is shit. Straight up poop. But it also happens to be the most ridiculously enjoyable, action packed, idiotically fun piece of poop I’ve ever laid eyes on. What does that say about the film itself? I’m not entirely sure. But maybe that’s the beauty of it.
Do I really need to lay out the plot? Here’s an attempt: Furious 7 picks up where the last film left off, with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) moping about her amnesia and wandering around aimlessly with Dom (Vin Diesel), Paul Walker’s character attempting to be domesticated with his family, The Rock walking around his government office in a cut off shirt while sweating profusely for no discernible reason, and Jason Statham on a rampage attempting to kill all these people as part of a terribly constructed revenge plan. Kurt Russell then pops into the movie, over-complicating things and attempting to distract us from the whole Jason Statham thing by sending everyone on a quest for a tracking program known as the “Gods Eye.” This forces Statham to take a backseat and ram his way into the movie at random intervals, barely saying a word of dialogue the whole time.
The “plots” in these films are just an excuse to stage some overly long action scenes. In the case of Furious 7, really long ones. One of them goes on for over a half hour. While most of these scenes are awesome, they get progressively less awesome as the runtime wears on. Fatigue begins to set in. Watches start getting looked at. People in the theater start shifting in their seats. Action is all about quick, effective set pieces. The longer you go, the less a person cares. But then, Vin Diesel drives a car in between three skyscrapers and you kind of forgive everything for a little while. Until the climactic action scene, which goes almost as long as the first half-hour one.
The cast looks like they’re getting paid to hang out and be awesome over the course of this entire franchise, and it’s no exception here. The fact they get paid for this is ridiculous. Everyone seems to be on Cloud 9 when they’re not mumbling and sleepwalking their way through their dialogue. A huge highlight for me since Fast Five was the involvement of The Rock. Dude is charismatic as all hell, and is so damn watchable that even when he plays such a ridiculous cartoon character like Hobbs, you can’t help but love him. But in this installment they get the brilliant idea of sidelining him for 85% of the movie, clocking his screen time to around 15 minutes. Major misstep bros.
And all this brings us to the inescapable fact that this is Paul Walkers last onscreen performance. Without getting into spoilers, the ending acknowledges that in a very respectful way. Unfortunately, what they decide to do makes no sense within the context of the actual movie itself. It’s like the movie pauses at the end, and everyone breaks character to point out that this dude is dead and that you should cry about it. And they REALLY want you to cry about it. It’s like the movie NEEDS you to cry. I didn’t cry. I actually ran to the bathroom at the first sign of an onscreen credit. I mean no disrespect to Paul Walker. He seemed like a good dude, and he deserves recognition. I just feel like they could have done it in a more organic way, and in such a way that it matched up with the rest of the film.
Now with all this whining you’ve been reading so far, you probably think I hated this movie. But I didn’t. I’m glad movies like this exist, movies that are so stupid and illogical and idiotic that you cant help but laugh and love every second of them. Even if it goes on for too long, is terribly acted, and altogether terribly executed. Its so damn bad, its actually GOOD. We all need movies like this once in awhile. This is the cinematic equivalent of fast food. So eat up bitches. 95% of you will anyway.
I give Furious 7 a 7 out of 10. Ha. Fitting right? Now is Daredevil on Netflix yet?