Big, dumb and bloated but still very enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (13 May 2015)

Furious 7 is essentially The Raid 2 but with cars. It's big and globe trotting, feeling like a crazy Bond film. It's also pretty stupid. but I will say it seems aware of that... half of the time. It's not my favorite of the series, but it's certainly the biggest, and it can be quite a bit of fun.
The two big flaws here are excess and stupidity. The film is 2 hours and 17 minutes, and it really feels long. As much as I love action, this film is like 92% action scenes, and with a film this length, you need to pad it a bit. Here's an example. The Raid Redemption was almost all action, but it was 90 minutes. When it's sequel turned out to be around 2 and a half hours, they padded it with drama scenes. Here, it can feel a bit like a punch to the skull for its whole run time, making you feel numb from the action and taking away from it. It seems like every 10 seconds there's a punch, slam, boom, or crash. There's guns, cars, explosions, the whole works. When there's too much, it's sensory overload and it all becomes one big ball of loud. It does contain some of the most ambitious action sequences in the whole series, and they are just insane. Cars with parachutes, cars going out windows, you name it. They are pretty well done, with a nice mix of practical and CGI. I did take issue with the way it was shot, as it could be quite shaky and fast paced, and it sometimes moves faster than your brain can process. A highlight for me was a fist fight involving Tony Jaa (who I am glad they didn't put to waste) that is just crazy. There's a scene that has a door going down a flight of stairs with the two fighters on it, and it amazed me, which is very difficult considering the mass amount of action films I have scene. When you can show me something new, I gotta give credit.
I'm sure a lot of people are wondering about the CGI Paul Walker, and I have to say they did a very good job. As someone who has seen a lot of CGI stuff, I could kind of tell when something was off, but it still had me unsure whether I was seeing really good CGI or the real Paul. The person I saw it with said she didn't notice it at all, so I guess that means that the general public won't notice a thing. It's difficult to make a human face look real with CGI, but they do a damn fine job. On that same note, there's a very touching Paul Walker tribute at the end that is tasteful and really well done. It was heart warming to see and they couldn't have done it better.
As I said, the film is kind of stupid. Yeah, the past entries haven't been smart, but they have certainly progressed further and further out of reality, and at this point it might as well be sci fi. There's clichés and stuff that just couldn't happen at all. Unfortunately, it's only self aware what feels like half of the time. It can crack a joke at itself, but other times it just feels cheesy. There's also things like Tyrese Gibsons' character, who they over use. He plays the comic relief, and it works at the right time, but when it feels like every scene includes a quip from him, you just wanna strangle the guy. There's also so many people in here, coming and going, cameos and bigger roles, you name it. Characters from past films in the series pop up for a scene, new actors are brought in as new characters, some of which more substantial than others, such as Kurt Russel being an important character, but Tony Jaa being a henchman. Iggy Azalea even pops up for like 5 seconds. That had me scratching my head a little.
Overall, fans will almost certainly enjoy it. I'm a fan of the series, and I know it's not high art, but I like to have some mindless fun. This film kind of feels like Transformers in that regard, with it's sensory overload of action and long run time, which is probably its biggest downfall for me in all honesty, but there's a lot to like here, and it gives a lot of fan service. My favorite is still Fast Five followed by the first one, but this is a big step above the disappointing 6th film.