Overblown, manipulative, and contrived.

Rating: 3/10 (10 April 2015)

I am a long time fan of The Fast and the Furious series. Watching it evolve as a franchise over the years has been a great joy and a lot of fun. From the early 2000's feel of the first two to the high octane of the last two, it has been an interesting series to follow. It's great action and fun characters are what has kept audiences coming back again and again. This is why I'm sad to say Furious 7 doesn't deliver in any way.
Firstly, the story was a convoluted mess that ultimately made little sense. It's an action movie, I get it, sometimes you've got to turn off your brain. Even if a plot is predictable, it should at least make sense. Furious 7 sees Jason Statham, who was teased at the end of the last film, take on the gang for nearly killing his brother. The trailers advertised the film as Statham vs. the F&F crew, but really it's about them working for the government to get a hacker, to find a program, that they need for reasons, and Djimon Hounsou is an angry warlord. The story never feels like it's sensibly going anywhere, and even if it's all just a setup for action sequences, it barely serves to do that. Nothing is connected and ultimately it's hard to care about what's happening, or for the characters involved.
This is where Furious 7 is weakest, it drops everything about the characters that was great. They spew one liners with little passion, Toretto hamfistedly preaches about family to pad length into scenes between set pieces, and everyone else has become a parody of themselves and a stereotype of their race. Jason Statham is completely wasted as his story is sidelined for another. His sole purpose is to show up in every action piece at the worst time to cause trouble for the gang. That's all he does, just show up and kind of make things harder. Along with Statham, Hounsou and Tony Jaa are also wasted in the role of vague villains who don't really seem to have any motives outside of being really evil. Hounsou is an underrated gem, as is Jaa and it was really good to see him in some Hollywood cinema. Too bad neither has much to say nor are they given a shot to deliver anything other than "bad guy dialogue."
The action is partly the only thing that makes the movie bearable. It keeps things going and at times it is really exciting, particularly thanks to the direction of James Wan. Wan's really only other foray into action cinema was the immensely underrated 2007 film "Death Sentence." Unfortunately, all of Wan's creative tricks and ideas can only do so much with what is already a stupid script. Without spoiling too much, the action scenes are a mix of high octane, on-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement and physics that push what I previously thought possible to exist within the realm of suspended disbelief. When the characters survive so many impossible feats, it all becomes a wacky show of what will they do next? There is no suspense by the end of the film, you know that despite how ridiculous it is, they'll all be fine. Let's just say the scene in the trailer with the car flying between two buildings in Abu Dabi is a lot more absurd in the actual film, and I lost my self cracking up in the theater.
Finally, let's talk about the manipulation of the film. We all know what happened during filming, Rest In Peace Paul Walker. The ending was a nice send off, with Vin Diesel musing about brotherhood. It feels real, all though out of place with the story, but it comes across as genuine. That is until CGI Demon Walker shows up to look into Diesel's soul with glassy eyes that hold the gaze of hell. Seriously, how did they think they could pull that off? The scene on storyboard must have looked really good. Walker pulls up next to Diesel, they share a final moment, and then drive off into the sunset in different directions. They could have achieved this with many other means, considering the real Walker was dead, but no, they had to reanimate him in cold, creepy, uncanny valley digital animation.
This final scene could have been a nice send off, but instead it came across as a cheap manipulation to get the audience to feel nostalgic. After an entire ridiculous movie with a ridiculous end to the action, we get treated to a sappy bit shot at what has to be the warmest beach in California. It was sad he passed away so young, he seemed like a decent guy. This "tribute" felt more like "tear bait" injected in to trick the audience into feeling like they watched a tribute to the career of a great man. Too bad it was just Furious 7. Again, R.I.P. Paul Walker.