A good send off to Paul Walker, but was it a good movie ?

Rating: 5/10 (20 April 2015)

Man, I got to tell you, I was pleasantly surprised by the last two Fast and the Furious films and when I went to see this one, I was really excited, when I saw it....eh? I mean, yeah, the film is decent. I guess my biggest problem with the film is the lack of story. There is so much story that is substituted for needless chase and explosions, and I know that is kind of the point of the Fast and Furious franchise but in the last two films, what worked was the development of the characters as well as the introduction and development of new characters and villains such as Hobbs or Shaw.
Here, you are promised prominent Hollywood bad asses, Jason Statham, Tony Jaa and Djmion Honsou (one of my favorite actors) and they get no development and are all shoehorned into several different plot lines that add up to nothing more than a few fight scenes that you honestly don't care about. Also, the film really exploits how much it can get away with in terms of action, they did it before but here it gets somewhat distracting. I hear Denzel Washington turned down Kurt Russell's role and with the way he is written, I can see why. He was REALLY ANNOYING.
The film's one saving grace is its ending. I won't give it away but it is a very heart warming send off to Paul Walker, and you can feel it was coming from the hearts of his co-stars. They also dealt with the CGI of Paul Walker's face very well.
Overall, Fast 7 is a fun film, a popcorn film and you probably won't want to watch it again.