Movie Review: Furious 7
The Fast and the Furious crew is back for another round, with a few cast change-ups: this time, Jason Statham is playing the "big bad," as the brother of a man the crew killed in a previous movie. I'm a huge fan of Statham in general, and he usually plays "the good guy," too, so it was fun to see him pop up here.
Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a policeman, is closing up shop for the night when he stumbles upon Deckard Shaw (Statham) hacking into the precinct's computer system. A fight ensues, and Shaw escapes; Hobbs decides to enlist Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his friends to find Shaw. A wealthy businessman (Kurt Russell) has an interest in finding the hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel, Game of Thrones), who controls the program God's Eye, and he promises Toretto that Toretto's crew can use the program to find Shaw if they help him find Ramsey first. Car chases and pyrotechnic stunts ensue, including some of the craziest things we've seen yet in this franchise.
Some of the dialogue in this movie was cheesy, but let's be honest - are you really here for the dialogue? My jaw dropped at some of the amazing stunts this film shows off; there's one you've probably seen in the trailers, where four or five cars drop from an airplane in order to get the crew into a highly secure ground location, as well as a $3 million car jumping between skyscrapers. I would definitely give this film 5 out of 5 stars (or maybe even 6 out of 5 stars) for the stunts. The cast works well together too, as most of them have been working together for a while now, and Statham was a welcome addition to the mix.
Yes, definitely see this movie. I was able to attend a screening in IMAX, which was great; the screen is huge and the sound was unparalleled. Make sure to stay through the credits for a nice tribute to Paul Walker, who passed away this past November during filming; his brothers helped complete the movie for scenes filmed after his death. The movie also leaves room for another Furious (Furious 8?) film, and I hope they continue on with the franchise despite Walker's untimely passing.
Furious 7 is in theaters today, April 3rd, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 137 minutes. 4 stars out of 5.