Bloated but still fun, Furious 7 is brain-eliminating popcorn entertainment with nice dramatic touches

Rating: 7/10 (9 April 2015)

Imagine your favorite food. Let's use pizza, because 99% of the world loves pizza. Imagine a nice big pepperoni pizza. Always a good decision right? The cheese, fresh sauce, crisp pepperoni, nice crust. Now imagine that you pile nine pounds of pepperoni on top of the pizza. The ingredients are still good, these are still your favorite toppings, but the result remains overkill. That is Furious 7 in a nutshell: way too much of a good thing that results in the most ridiculousness and implausibility in the entire franchise. And yes it is indeed entertaining but for the first time we are seeing special effects totally overpower practical effects and the result is a movie that comes straight out of summer blockbusters as opposed to being a gritty and stunt-filled extravaganza like what we have been seeing in previous installments.
If you are a fan of the recent string of franchise-altering movies, then you will be entertained here. Just know that Fast and the Furious peaked with the killer bank vault scene from Fast Five. Within the two hours of Furious 7 there will be elongated fights, massive car chases, and purely insane action sequences that forces you to remove your brain temporarily. Mixed in nicely with the carnage are the consistent themes of family and love---plus the now-famous final scene that will trigger emotions that Fast and Furious had never dealt with before. Paul Walker's passing gives this movie a haunting edge, as even some of the costume choices and dialogue ironically singled out Walker long before his actual untimely death.
The cast is mostly back, although I do find myself missing the Don Omar/Tego Calderon combination. Vin Diesel and The Rock are at their toughest, Paul Walker is the perfect partner, Michelle Rodriguez continues that tough chick streak, and of course there's Ludicrous and Tyrese (whom we forget are music artists) working their comedic magic. We have now three villains they have to look out for (remember my comment about overkill?) but Jason Statham is the one that delivers the strongest punch as he mixes espionage with muscle.
The movie paces and runs like a music video: combining gorgeous women (to a point of pure misogyny), gorgeous cars, lots of speed, plenty of quick cuts, and lots of slow-motion shots. James Wan quickly developed a knack of combining music video eye candy material with an abundance of testosterone-laden carnage seamlessly. He is far removed from his low-budget horror days. However this day and age when action buffs have become accustomed to Gareth Evans (*raises hand*), it's slightly tougher to digest the fights and chases that occur here without feeling the slightest bit underwhelmed.
Furious 7 is more of the same, except so much more it really doesn't leave much for the eighth installment. After parachuting from a plane while inside a car, what on earth is there else to do? Fast and Furious has had a fantastic run but with each installment trying to top itself every time it will reach a point in which every scene becomes laughable. When the audience is chuckling and giggling during a serious action sequence, it's not the right reaction, even if the audience won't regret the money spent to get in.
If you are fine with the Fast and Furious series drifting farther and farther away from the lower-key, more urban original flick that started it all, then Furious 7 will entertain you, thrill you, and leave you smiling. If you are looking more for a return to roots, a more realistic approach to vehicular action, run away from this movie. Furious 7 isn't the best, but it's definitely the biggest, and definitely the most emotional of them all. The stuntwork (when actually used) is fantastic, the directing is slick, and it accomplishes what it's set out to do. And lastly, Paul Walker despite his untimely departure cinematically gets to leave in the perfect time.