Fast and Expendable

Rating: 6/10 (22 July 2015)

As if speed-dragging a multi-ton safe and jumping the tank wasn't enough, here comes another larger than life set of car chases, girls' asses, shootouts and mass destruction. And if you thought that the sixth installment was over the top, then brace yourself for a complete re-definition of that term. Because compared to what our old friends do here in Furious Seven, the feats of Ethan Hunt are a wee child's walk in the park.
There's one undoubtedly good thing about this film, and it's the fact that it brought Nathalie Emmanuel, hands down the hottest babe from Game of Thrones, back to the big screen. She was definitely the right person to break that typical "nerdy hacker" stereotype, although for the relevant skills she hardly presents anything besides tapping helplessly on the keyboard when it doesn't even matter and the British accent. But who cares really when you have such hair, face and figure.
Other than that, it's the same old Fast'n'Furious routine, which always goes exactly the same way, except this time we all know something unexpected happened in the real world and someone managed to get himself proper f@cked, as Jason Statham could've said in a different time and in a different movie. This is pretty unthinkable for a franchise famous for its damage-proof characters who can get blown out from the 4th floor or fall from a cliff and hardly bleed after that.
I wish i could cut the cynicism and get a little sentimental for the film series i spent all my maturity along with, especially since the ending of Furious Seven is a real tearjerker, with Vin Diesel's soliloquy that sounds as if coming both from his character and himself as a person. But the filmmakers simply couldn't resist the temptation to capitalize on Paul Walker's death and announce that the film would be released anyway and that he'd be digitally recreated for whatever scenes he didn't get to do. So instead of simply enjoying the show i came to see this movie for, i couldn't help playing the guess game of whether it's the real Paul or some masterful CGI. And i guess i even found at least one "fake Paul" scene - a few moments in the episode with the drone and the truck carrying pipes. Or was that the stunt double? Nah, he better not be, otherwise it would ruin the game.
Seriously, do you know any other action franchise that outlived the actor playing the main role? (Well, one of two main roles, but whatever.) Can you imagine Mission Impossible without Tom Cruise? Or Expendables without Stallone? Nope, it's just unreal. And even if those actors died halfway through film production and the movie makers decided to finish the job anyway, would their characters be kept alive? Don't think so. Why? Because it's not how the heroes go. They were risking their lives on screen, they were doing it again and again because it meant something for the world, or for themselves. Or maybe they were just missing the bullets. So if they were meant to finally go for good - especially after what happened with Paul who died doing what his character loved the most - they at least deserved to go with a real bang and not in some sappy PG-rated scene. This is an old geezer's way, and the heroes must always die young to be forever remembered.
But even if the film didn't do you proper justice, hopefully the time will. Rest in peace, Paul, and may they never make another F&F movie. It would just not be the same without you.