Furious 7 (2015)

Rating: 5/10 (7 December 2019)

Directed by James Wan. Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Elsa Pataky, Ronda Rousey, Tony Jaa. (PG-13)
The gearhead gang is back once again (excuse me, "family"), this time taking turns pursuing and being pursued by the brother (Statham) of the last baddie they took down. The street racing component is limited to a single brief scene at the beginning; the rest of the time, they're just IMF with hotter cars and smaller vocabularies (an undercover heist at a party in Abu Dhabi feels at times like a plagiarism of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise). If the last few outings were really dumb, this one is just plain stupid--raucous fun in fits and bursts, but too long, too over-the-top, too overstuffed, with flashy but pointless camera movements masking a firm sense of space, geography and logic. Less mayhem would have been a good thing, none of Gibson would have been a great thing. A few familiar faces make brief appearances, but the real stars will always be the cars and stunts; it's just a shame that so many of those stunts are too obviously staged/digitized and too physically impossible to legitimately thrill. Johnson is sidelined for most of the movie, but his bicep flex during the climax is one for the ages. Walker's final film, and the fitting farewell that caps the film is handled with surprising sensitivity.
47/100