Furious 7

I'm going to preface this with saying, I have never watched a full Fast and Furious movie prior to this movie. I never really found interest in the first one and since, its just not been a franchise I've been incredibly appealing. I've never been one for racing, and I know the franchise had kind of changed since the first film, but I just didn't really see the point in investing my time into these characters. I mean I love Vin Diesel as Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, but I'm not wild about him as an actor. I didn't seen much of a point of watching a film series that I didn't see as well acted or incredibly interesting at that.

And then Paul Walker passed away.

Now I was never really a fan of Paul Walker and I think initially I didn't think I would see the movie regardless. Yes he passed, but I didn't have any connection to the franchise, or Walker's character.

I think the thing that interested me the most about this film was that fact that the movie was only half way done before his passing. The movie needed to undergo rewrites and had to utilize CGI to recreate Walker. This wasn't like Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Hunger Games where the majority of the film was done and it didn't mess up the filming schedule, the production schedule was fully changed to make this movie great and give Walker a proper send off. Especially since they decided they were going to retire him, not kill him off.

Suddenly I became very interested. I was interested to see if they could make an action movie without one of the principle characters scenes totally filmed.

Put all that aside, if you've read anything I've written on Gal Gadot being cast as Wonder Woman, I've said a couple times that I need to get into the Fast and Furious movies to see her, but also see what those are all about. Now Gal Gadot is not in this film, but I think its time.

All that aside, what did I think of Furious 7?

Not seeing the previous films, I wanted to know if this film was a film that anybody could come in and have a good time without having to see the last 6 movies.

The answer is, Yes and No.

The film picks up the story lines of characters from previous films and seeks to finish off their arc. Michelle Rodriguez losing her memory in past films, Jason Statham being the brother of Luke Evans from the past film. There were probably more, I just didn't know. Now I think that's intentional, you don't go into the 7th movie expecting an refresher on the characters you've seen for 6 films prior, you expect the same characters to go on a new adventure.

That being said, it does preface some of the action with some background and I think the characters are likable enough that even if this is your first time around, you can figure out the place they have on the team and what their job is. There's even a scene where the hacker points to each of them and says, this is their position in the team. So I wasn't totally lost.

Here's the story.

In retribution for the crippling of his brother (in the last movie I believe) Deckard Shaw (played by Jason Statham) a ghost, former British special forces mercenary has a vendetta against the group that star in all the Fast and Furious movies led by Dominic Toretto (played by Vin Diesel.

He's hunting the members of this group down one by one and Dominic wants to stop him and protect his family.

After Shaw wounds The Rock, basically taking him out of the movie till the end (we'll get to that) and kills a guy anti-Snake eyes from GI Joe (I'm sorry I don't know who these people are) he set his sights on Dom and the rest of the gang. Dom is recruited by Kurt Russell to have him and his team do a mission for the government involving a piece of software called the God's eye, its basically the NSA's wet dream as they can utilize it to spy on everything with everything. Kurt Russell promises that Dom can use it to find Shaw and get his revenge.

And that's the basic plot. Dom and his team trying to get The God's Eye, Shaw coming in every once in a while to fuck shit up, and a lot of high paced, implausible stunts all leading up to what I personally think is a pretty good movie.

I definitely think Vin Diesel is exaggerating a little bit if he thinks that this movie is going to win an Oscar for Best Picture, but I do think this movie is just a down right fun time.

The fights are ridiculous. The characters are a lot of fun. The stunts are down right hilarious, and the the movie reminds me of an 80's or 90's action flick. Its not trying to be revolutionary, its just a pop corn flick that you can sit down, not necessarily turn your brain off, but just enjoy an over the top action flick.

Now if you're the kind of person who gets pulled out of the movie if you look at a stunt and say, that could never happen, maybe Furious 7 isn't the movie for you. And even if you are not that kind of person, which I can be from time to time, you might realize that this movie is far from perfect. As much as I enjoyed the performances from mostly everybody, everyone in this film is not that great of an actor. Now, some are better than others. Ronda Roussey, atrocious, yeah she's only in the movie for five minutes but she was so bad its worth mentioning. More in the group, Vin Diesel is not that great of an actor. But I think their performances lend themselves well to this just insane action film that I didn't really mind it all that much.

I'll mention it quick.

Ignore the arrows in this pic

The Rock wasn't in this movie nearly enough. He was awesome in it when he was, but he was barely in it. 

The other thing I really appreciated about this movie was that if I was not aware that Paul Walker was dead before watching this movie, throughout the majority of the film, I would not have known that he had passed away or that he wasn't slotted in to be in the next installment of this film. I think with the exception of the end, which I will get to in a second, Paul Walker was inserted perfectly into this film and he exited seemlessly. 

If you're looking for parts where they had to utilize CGI or had to use Paul Walker's brothers as a stand in because he was not able to film it himself, you might catch some CGI here and there. Especially in the end. 

But if you're not going into this movie thinking, I'm going to find each and every moment where Paul Walker was CGI'd into the film, you're probably not going to notice it. 

As much as I could tell, because I was looking (again, that's half the reason this movie intrigued me) I really thought they did it pretty well. Sure there were a couple moments where I caught on, but then there were moments where I didn't quite know if it was CGI or not. And I think that might make the second viewing of his film a little bit more enjoyable. 

The movie is a little fragmented. They seem to be jumping to one thing after another and it may seem a little disjointed. I thought the story flowed decently but it could have been cleaned up a little bit more. 

Also, unfortunately, I feel like they showed a lot in the trailers leading up to this film. I wasn't really that interested in watching all the trailers for this film because it wasn't high on my list of movies I wanted to see this year. But I remember thinking while I was in the theater that I saw this part in the trailer. 

Not all of them of course, but a lot of good ones. I think they should have left a few out of the trailer just because these scenes are so epic, they are so well choreographed and while they are definitely impossible, they're just down right entertaining. 

Yes the movie is cheesy. I swear to god, every time Jason Statham showed up, there was always this eye shot of both him and Vin Diesel and every time that happened I burst out laughing. I was laughing throughout this movie because it was so ridiculous. And while, in a way, I could see that as a bad thing, I think mostly it was a good thing. It was down right entertaining to see a car fly through a sky scraper to another sky scraper. Does it make a lot of sense? No. But who cares? Don't go into this movie expecting realism... you're not going to get it. 

And of course, I need to talk about the send off for Paul Walker. 

It was done really really well. 

They didn't kill him off, they just retired him in a really well done and tasteful way and it was just paralleled the impact he had on the entire cast.

One of the most touching things that came out of his death was the impact it had on Vin Diesel. Just how shaken he was by the tragedy and how personal this send off was, for someone who had no previous connection to this franchise or these actors, I could see how great of friends these two were and how they were really brothers. 

The ending is very touching and if I had been a Fast and Furious fan, I probably would have cried. 

Having Walker drive next to Vin Diesel, a montage of previous films going over an ending monologue said by Vin Diesel, not Dom, Vin Diesel, it just worked very, very well. All ending with the two cars separating at a fork in the road... chills I tell you, chills.  

Overall, Furious 7 is a lot of fun. Its really made me want to finally go back and watch the last 6... but we'll see how far I get in that. But it was a lot of fun. The characters were good, the story was good enough, the action was hilarious, the villain was menacing, the relationships were sincere, and the send off to someone who had been such a quintessential part of this family who was taken from this world too soon, was just down right heart wrenching. 

Have you seen Furious 7? What did you think? Comment and Discuss Below! Or shoot me a tweet @cmhaugen24 and follow me on Twitter to get updates on movie news and reviews. 

I'll leave you with this. To put the cherry on top of the entire send off, the music was superbly done. Here's the music video with some tribute to Paul Walker. Enjoy!