Great Send-Off to Paul Walker (1973-2013)

Rating: 8/10 (4 June 2017)

Since its fruition in 2001, the "Furious" movies has been a high octane franchise that churns out exciting adrenaline-pumping action mixed with colourful characters and intense story-lines. The first of the series had a "Point Break" thing going for it. The second one was a letdown due to Vin Diesel's absence, but it was still exhilarating. "Tokyo Drift" was the worst of the bunch. The forth one was great the Vin Diesel and Paul Walker came back and came into the idea of adding fast cars action with espionage James Bond themed stories and since then it has never looked back. The series from 4-6 had shifted gears towards action films very reminiscent to popular movie franchises of the 1980's and 1990's and each film was played solely from the heart, which is a good thing, because never once does it feel forced, doesn't insult your intelligence and not played for cheap thrills. "Furious 7" follows that trend like the 4-6 of the series only this time instead of jumping for joy in excitement, I was in tears of joy because the movie was well made, but tears of sadness as this was Paul Walker's last film before his tragic death.
To be frank, I was a little hesitant of seeing "Furious 7". I was scared, that this film was just there to cash in another franchise just for the sake of it. I also thought that Paul Walker's death would be too much heavy-cargo for me to sit there and realize that I'm watching an underrated performer to never grace the big screen again. Another thing that made me hesitant was that Justin Lin was not coming back this time around to direct. And though James Wan was great in his directing debut in the franchise, we see that action is not the genre of his craft. Granted there was some great usage of slow-motion captures and Wan seems at ease with the "Wan-cam", but still many times the editing of the action can be a bit rusty and sloppy and the close cuts and the zooms make the action hard to follow at times. It's still ten times better than "Taken 3", but the scenery is opaque and indecipherable at times. There are some really cool moments like when Brian O'Connor's (Walker) speeding down the transport and was about to fall to his demise, but was successfully rescued in Letty Ortiz's (Michelle Rodriguez) car. Sadly, the action scenes are not in the same league as series 4-6. The showdown was a bit of a disappointment, the drone fiasco left very little impression because I was more excited about an epic showdown between Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). It truly pales in comparison to "Fast 6" where the entire swat has his and her time to shine. Although she was best thing to happen in "The Expendables 3", I thought Rhonda Rousey was badly wasted here as a Head of Security to an Abu Dhabi billionaire.
Even though the action was not up to par from the series 4-6, it was still very character driven. It was great to see Walker and Diesel go at one more time for one last ride. Dwayne Johnson was Luke Hobbs shows why he's valuable asset to the franchise. Michelle Rodriguez shows she one of the toughest action film stars out there and it's a pleasure watching her kick butt. Jason Statham is by far one of the best villains in the franchise in hopes he plays more villainy characters in the near future. And even though I may have been a bit down on the action, it's still fun to watch in all its over-the-top imagination. The pacing is executed briskly up to bring some action and character develop,meant. Very entertaining and a nice swan song for Paul Walker. The last five minutes of the movie were very emotional and it was handled in a very crisp, tender moment and the epilogue to O'Connor was fulfilling and very well executed. Even though there are more sequels to come, there's part of me that wished this film would end the franchise because the ending was so perfect. After the credits rolled I really left the theatre satisfied given I was entertained, engaged and filled with tears in both joy and sadness as O'Connor drives his fast-car into the heaven's above.