Besides a dignified farewell for Paul Walker, this seventh entry doesn't match the fun, excitement and adrenaline rush of its two immediate predecessors

Rating: 6/10 (1 April 2015)

Vin Diesel may have been the most indelible trademark of the 'Fast and Furious' franchise, but its late star Paul Walker has consistently been the Yang to Diesel's Yin. It is no secret that 'Furious 7' is Walker's final performance, an inevitable consequence of his untimely death in a car wreck last year while filming on this latest instalment was underway.
All we will say is that its writer Chris Morgan has given him as dignified a farewell as we can expect, and as the epilogue made up of footage from each one of the movies past echoed Diesel's personal message of brotherhood and family, be prepared for perhaps the series' most poignant moment ever. This however we will say – Walker is front and centre in each and every one of the action setpieces that Morgan and its new director James Wan conceive for a solid but otherwise unspectacular entry which can't quite match the fun, excitement and adrenaline kicks of Justin Lin's two earlier chapters. Oh yes, the filmmakers have pushed the boundaries of logic and gravity to try to top the over-the-top thrills of its two predecessors, but ironically the strain of their effort is more apparent than ever.
Indeed, it is telling when a car chase along the streets of Los Angeles no longer gets our pulse racing in the same way that the first movie did – and there is one in particular between Dominic and his arch-nemesis here Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) that is particularly nostalgic. Rather, it will take parachuting Mustangs chasing after a rogue paramilitary unit up in the Caucasus mountains led by Djimon Hounsou's terrorist Jakande to get us to truly sit up, but let us reassure you that this sequence teased in the trailer ranks among the finest that this muscle-car franchise has offered. It takes close to an hour to get to this point, as Morgan sets up the vendetta between Deckard and Dominic (and as his crew) and set in motion the pieces for their latest adventure.
Frankly, the plot exists only as the narrative glue for the various stunts meant to be the highlight of any 'Fast and Furious' movie. There is no point questioning just why Kurt Russell's shadowy Government agent would entrust a supposedly time-critical mission of retrieving an all-seeing surveillance programme known as the 'God's Eye' and its creator (Nathalie Emmanuel's Ramsey) to Dominic and his men without so much as having his own team to stand by. Ditto for why Dominic would even agree to put his men in such danger despite being promised that they could use the said device to track down Deckard, in particular since the latter seems to show up on his own accord at every turn to foil their plans. We get that the franchise needs to shift gears in order to stay fresh (like how the fifth movie reinvented itself into a heist caper), but this detour into international espionage is far less convincing to say the least.
It also explains why we were not quite taken by the sojourn into the United Arab Emirates capital of Abu Dhabi, compared to say the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in 'Fast Five' or the streets of London in 'Furious 6'. Yes, it does provide the opportunity for Dominic to crash a Lykan HyperSport out through one of the upper floors of the Etihad Towers, float across the Abu Dhabi sky while Deckard fires grenades at him, then smash through a window of a neighbouring tower, and finally skid past a small deployment of Terracotta Warriors – but it is so ridiculous even by 'Mission Impossible' standards that one cannot help but react with bemusement than wide- eyed awe. That leaves an overblown finale in the most literal sense of the word, which sees Jakande strike up a convenient alliance with Deckard in order to unleash war on Dominic and his men in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Between Jakande's unmanned drone and his military helicopter, the urban warfare cannot quite match the white knuckle suspense and exhilaration of a massive bank vault dragged through Rio or an assembly of race cars taking down an airplane as it prepares to take off.
Certainly, Wan had big shoes to fill with Lin's departure, but the helmer (better known for 'Saw', 'Insidious' and 'The Conjuring') who has never taken on a project of this scale misses the mark on several counts. Not only is the action more 'meh' than 'wow', there is too little of the camaraderie between Dominic and his crew which gave the last two films an added 'zing'. Just as sorely missed is the dynamic between Diesel and Dwayne Johnson's Federal Agent Hobbs, the latter of which pretty much sits out the whole movie after being injured by Deckard in one of the early scenes – and despite what promise it may have shown, the mano-a-mano showdown between Diesel and Statham cannot quite live up to that between Diesel and Johnson in 'Fast Five'.
After the dizzying heights of the immediate last two movies, it seems inevitable that 'Furious 7' will be at least slightly underwhelming – and if not for the beautiful sendoff for Paul Walker at the end, it would be even more disappointing. At this point, the franchise seems to be its own enemy, and if we weren't quite so taken by 'Furious 7', that's because we knew from 'Fast Five' and 'Furious 6' that it could have been much better.