'Furious 7' review

Furious 7 review:

Wan Ton of Fun

BY IAN TAN

One last ride.

This is an amazing actioner courtesy of first-time action director James Wan (y’all know him from ‘Insidious’ and ‘The Conjuring’). If you thought the trailer gave away too much, boy, are you in for a surprise. Yes, the trailers do give away some of the money shots, but there’s absolutely nothing like watching those completed sequences whole. That parachuting cars scene used in majority of the film's marketing especially looks great in IMAX, even if the post-converted 3D isn’t all that noticeable.

Action sequences aside, Wan definitely cares for his characters. The first 20 minutes of the film are dedicated to the characters’ relationships with one another, and help conjure up enough emotion for you to care about these characters when the over-the-top action sequences hit full throttle.

"Just when you didn't think it could get any better, huh?"

Emotionally, this is the most humanly accessible Fast & Furious movie in the series, not only because of Paul Walker’s unfortunate demise last year but also because James Wan just knows how to make these characters we’ve seen for six films already more... human, having the theme of ‘family’ serve as the film’s emotional core.

Speaking of Paul Walker, he seemed like he was pretty much in the movie the whole time, and there were really only two scenes where I figured they must’ve used a stand-in (his brothers, according to sources) with a CGI face (rumoured to be courtesy of WETA Digital), one in a darkly lit fight scene and the other during the closing shots of the film. But the CG face never looked too obvious to me.

The Rock and The Transporter in the ring

As for flaws, I did feel as if Jason Statham could have been given more screen-time, but despite that I thought he made the most of his time on screen and was a pretty badass villain. Djimon Hounsou also plays an antagonist in the film, but feels somewhat underused, with his character not having any real motivation for his plans. Another gripe I have with the film is that its climactic action sequence feels a little too prolonged, and the fact that most of it takes place at night made certain sequences hard to digest, and some of the green screen and CGI may look obvious at times. Then again, most of the film’s action sequences are very well filmed and executed. Action sequences that take place in the dark just aren’t really my thing.

We'll miss ya, Paul.

To wrap it up, Furious 7 was an amazing, exhilarating ride filled with some of the best and most innovative action sequences I’ve ever seen on the big screen. I can see Hollywood already hiring James Wan to direct more action flicks in the future. As a tribute to Paul Walker, this film truly does the late actor justice, and may cause a tear or two to drop during the last 5 minutes of the film, right before the screen cuts to white, with the words “For Paul”.

Verdict

Furious 7 gets 7.9 out of 10 stars from me. – I cannot wait to see it again.

Film Info

Furious 7 opens in Malaysia on Thursday, 2^nd April in 2D, 3D, IMAX 3D and D-BOX.