Thursday, April 2, 2015

Furious Seven (2015): Review

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I have been looking forward to the newest installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise and if you know me you will know why. I love crappy, big budget, actions movies with lots of flashiness, explosions, chases, and fights. Going into Furious Seven, I was expecting it to be on par with the more recent installments and I am happy to say that it satisfied me and met my expectations. That being said, it is no way an award winner but it is what I have come to expect from these movies which have been getting more and more preposterous as the series has gone on.
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Furious Seven continues a few years after the end of Fast & Furious 6. Dom, played by Vin Diesel, is trying to help Letty, played by Michelle Rodriquez, get her memoires back now they he knows that she is not actually dead but she doesn't remember anything from their life together.  Brian, played by Paul Walker, is having difficulty settling into a normal life as a father with his wife, and Dom's sister Mia, played by Jordana Brewster and small son.  Everyone is drawn back into danger when Deckard Shaw, played by Jason Statham, decides he is going to hunt down Dom due to his little brother being the villain in Fast & Furious 6 and him not being to happy that Dom and crew put the beat down on him. As shown in the teaser in 6 a member of Dom's crew was killed in Tokyo as  warning to Dom. As Dom is hunted by Shaw, Mr. Nobody, played by Kurt Russell, offers Dom a deal with if he saves a hacker names Ramsey, played by Nathalie Emmaunuel, who has developed a program which can find anyone in the world by hacking electronic devices, he will allow Dom to use it to find Shaw.  Also back in the movie are Roman, played by Tyrese, the wise cracking sidekick of Brian from 2 Fast 2 Furious; Tej, played by Ludacris a car tech guy also first appearing in 2 Fast 2 Furious; and Agent Hobbs, played by The Rock, originally appearing in Fast Five.
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Like I said this movie is basically what you have come to expect, and many of us love about The Fast and the Furious movies.  There are amazing cars driving really fast and usually getting destroyed in the process. There are ridiculous stunts and action scenarios that continue to be absolutely over the top but are fun if you can suspend the fact that there is no way that they would even, and I mean ever, be able to actually happen. There is bad and over the top acting from everyone involved and the reduction of many of them to their caricatured main traits and over emphasized emotion laid on thick. There are an abundance of cheesy one liner. There are scantily clad females that are only their for eye candy and this movie has a large amount of ass shots that I could have done without but that they guys will enjoy. The male actors are getting a bit older but still have some strut to them and I have to agree with my cousin that Tyrese continues to be one attractive piece of man candy.
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The one thing about this movie that makes it different from the previous ones in the series is that as many of you know Paul Walker died in a car accident in the middle of filming so both of his brothers were used to finish his role. There are moments where because I know that there were replacements for him that I could tell that was why it was filmed the way it was, with his face in shadows, profiles, or quick personal shots. I think that they did a great job of making it work and it wasn't too distracting or noticeable. The sap factors is kicked into overdrive at the end of the movie.
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I do not think it necessary to say who should go and see this movie due to it being the seventh installment and you know whether you are a fan of them or not but I will say that it was worth seeing in IMAX and this is the type of movie that I think IMAX works really well for.
I have to finish by complaining that this movie as well as a lot of action movies are continuing to have close up/ choppy actions sequences that annoy the crap out of me. I like to see what is happening with the whole sequence not just jump around with editing, in this movie they even did this with the cars chases.

My Rating: 2

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