Fun While it Lasts

Rating: 5/10 (7 April 2015)

Furious 7 is the next tale of Dom, Brian, and the gang driving fast cars and surviving everything like they have some sort of invulnerability cheat code on. In this one, Jason Statham plays the baddie, out for revenge after the defeat of his brother in the last movie. It's a decent set-up that plays out really boring in the beginning. It takes quite a while for the movie to pick up (though there is one decent fight in there). Then they drive cars out of an airplane onto a narrow mountain pass, drive cars into each other at a hundred miles an hour and walk out unscathed, and all kinds of other assorted ridiculousness.
I spent most of the movie laughing at how stupid it was, but that's not a bad thing. It's a tad overlong but once it gets going, strap in for a fun ride. After all the destruction (which includes tons of civilians dying, most notably a truck driver), we get a nice tribute to Paul Walker and that's it.
It's a ridiculous, stupid movie that shouldn't be taken seriously. It's the kind of popcorn movie I enjoy going to the theater to see. But I walked away from it feeling slightly dissatisfied. It has no staying power beyond the one viewing. It's pretty shallow except for the end and the action, while crazy, feels like it would only be effective one time. Hell, it was barely effective this time since all the crazier stunts were shown in trailers and commercials.
Also, the acting is pretty awful. There are a few cast members who do a good job but I've always found Diesel wooden and boring and some of the secondary characters, especially a female villain later on, are God-awful.
A lot of people hate the series for changing so much; I personally feel the movies come out better that way. The racing movies felt like straight-to-DVD trash and I feel the series would probably head down that road if not for the insane stunts and action.
Should you see Furious 7? I think so. If you're a fan, you'll love it and if you love action films, you'll find some of the better car chase sequences of recent memory. But the biggest problem I have--the reason I give it a 5--is that it has no staying power. It's a one-and-done movie that you won't need to see again, nor probably want to.