Movie Review: Furious 7

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The Fast & Furious series is back again with its seventh latest "furiouser" installment, Furious 7. The series has changed a lot over the years...first about illegal street racing in Los Angeles, then a serious heist thriller and now a global spy thriller. (Yes, you heard me! The gang are now turned into international secret military operatives!) Over the years, the franchise has always been delivering on what they promised: bombastic action, hot babes in bikinis and lots of sports cars... with recent installments more focused on the main characters, making each of them individually defined enough to be easily recognized on screen.

This film is also director James Wan's (mostly directed horror films like Saw, The Conjuring, Insidious) first go at the franchise, and there are subtle changes compared to the last four films, which were previously helmed by Justin Lin (who's moved on to direct the next Star Trek film). Needless to say, this has got to be the most epic, extravagant, ridiculous yet jaw-dropping, action-packed, emotional film in the franchise. In this film, the team tries to take down the dangerous ex-black ops British terrorist Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the brother of Owen Shaw (the villain in the previous installment, played by Luke Evans) who comes for revenge. In order to find and track him down, they need to assist in securing a kidnapped hacker from a terrorist group.

The film is constantly filled with tension and excitement despite its slightly long running time (2 hours and 20 minutes). The impressive, absurd yet glorious stunt-filled action sequences featured in this film will definitely keep the audience glued to the screen. They able to both match and even top the efforts of its previous installments. Aside from the usual sport cars that many viewers of the franchise used to be seeing in the past, there are more luxurious supercars being used this time around: Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Maserati, Lamborghini, Koenigsegg and the exclusive $3.4 million Lykan HyperSport. There are also a few comic relief scenes with Roman (Tyrese Gibson) as well to relief some of tension between the action sequences.

The team have good chemistry with each other and the film does have a plot, albeit a simple one. As usual, Vin Diesel still bring his 'alpha' leadership to the team, Paul Walker as his right-hand man with past experiences as an FBI agent, Michelle Rodriguez as his racing support/lover-'miss alpha', Dwayne Johnson as the team's 'muscle man support'/connection to the police, Chris Bridges as the tech guy, Tyrese Gibson as the comic relief. There's also a new female addition to the team, Ramsey, a highy attractive hacker who's also the key to the film's MacGuffin. The inclusion of Thai martial artist Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) and mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey (The Expendables 3) also add flavour to the close-combat fight action scenes in the film as well.

However, the film is not without its problems. The franchise's biggest problem has always been the lack of compelling, memorable villains. The same can be said for this one as well. There are two villains this time around and they were constantly sidelined most of the time by each other and the big action sequences. The characters are not well developed enough, which is a waste. There are some plot contrivances here and there and some dialogues in certain scenes are particularly cheesy and corny, which I think viewers of the franchise would get used to them by now.

The film also provides the audience a nice sendoff and tribute to Paul Walker at the end. Another major problem for the film is the tragic untimely death of Paul Walker during the film production (everyone should know by now that Paul died in a car accident last year halfway through filming), which forced the studio to hire Walker's brothers to step in and that CGI would be used for his face and voice. All in all, the film has high entertainment value, delivers on all fronts and a brilliant last ride for Paul Walker.

List of Fast & Furious movies:	Rating:
The Fast and The Furious (2001)	7/10
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)	5.5/10
Fast and Furious (2009)	6/10
Fast Five (2011)	8.5/10
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)	7.5/10
The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)	7/10
Furious 7 (2015)	8/10

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