bigger and crazier

Rating: 7/10 (12 February 2016)

Owen Shaw is in the hospital and his dark-ops brother Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) wants revenge. He attacks Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Elena Neves at their DSS offices in L.A. He steals the info on the family and kills Han in Tokyo. He sends a bomb to Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Dom, minivan driving Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and family barely escape. Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) is still struggling to remember. A mysterious dark-ops agent Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) recruits Dom and the family to rescue hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and her God's Eye program which can track down anybody with access to every device. She has been kidnapped by terrorist Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou).
This franchise has basically morphed into a superhero movie. It is still able to maintain the family which is its strength. The action is bigger and crazier than ever. Jumping from one building to another is not enough. They have to jump one more building and that's what is so fun about this movie. It doesn't care about realism. The movie revels in going over the top. There is an exuberance when the car does another jump when nobody expects it. This movie also has to deal with Paul Walker's death. Director James Wan does it in a classy way with the montage. It actually raises the tension in the bus chase when one is never certain that Paul Walker's character wouldn't be killed right there and then. The fights, the stunts, and the CGI destruction are all top rate. The biggest problem is some of the dialog early on. Some of the exchanges and performances are too overwrought and stale. It reminds me of bad soap opera acting. It starts the movie on the wrong foot but thankfully it stops after the first act. The acting is mostly good with a few exceptions. Tyrese Gibson and Ludicrous have great fun chemistry and I wouldn't mind Nathalie Emmanuel joining the family in the future.