A poignant stylized goodbye to the franchise (whether there are further installments or not)

Rating: 6/10 (7 April 2015)

Once street racers and criminals, Furious Seven finds the Torretto gang in an international pursuit with terrorists and the US government.
Through the course of seven films, the Fast and the Furious gang changed a lot from the scrappy youngsters they were in 2001. By 2015, the group is now whittled down to a simple Furious Seven with near special operative training and global adventures.
It is rather amazing how far the Torretto crew has come since their early days in Los Angeles hijacking eighteen wheelers and street racing at night. With each installment the characters have become more brazen with hauls more daring and intricate than the last to near super human feats. Furious Seven takes off just where Fast & Furious 6 ended, with their pasts catching up to them with fatal consequences.
By now, the action formula associated with the Fast and Furious flicks is down to a science, so fans should be in for a fun ride though those less inclined for the franchise will be giggling at its preposterousness. Even the fans in the theater during my viewing were having a hard time not to chuckle with amusement at the ludicrosity of the plot of Furious Seven â€“ though that is where much of the entertainment stems from for these film viewers. With no formal training other than a brazen fortitude, this group goes head to head with black ops martial artists and live to tell about it.
Furious 7 has scantily clad women, car porn, an onslaught of even more daring car chases and races, and playboy billionaire parties galore and satisfies its fans for junk cinema. The dialogue is cheesy, proof that sometimes the stoic Alpha male character is not loquacious for good reason. But really, Furious 7 is a vast improvement to its immediate predecessor Fast & Furious 6 which was just excessively absurd and unrealistic. Seven even manages to poke fun at the ridiculous pursuits of its characters by referencing the audacious happenings of the past with a sarcastic levity. In an effort to up and ante with the seventh film while becoming more grounded as a film, director James Wan utilizes highly stylized angles and panning shots which will be disorienting to some.
Allegedly there will be an eight installment to the franchise, though I hope the studio bags that idea. Furious 7 concludes as appropriately and poignantly as it can, given its light-natured cinematic genre. It pays homage to the past, and to its most beloved star Paul Walker, with genuine heartfelt sentiment and any future film will just not have the same soul.
And for those simply curious about the scenes involving Walker's brothers Cody and Caleb: yes, those with a discerning eye can tell the scenes films after his untimely death.
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