Furiouser and Furiouser

It's still remarkable to see that Fast & Furious franchise is hitting installment number seven and it's still growing. However, the growth was brought to a halt when one of the main stars of the film Paul Walker, who's in six of the seven films portraying Brian O'Conner died in an accident. The world was taken aback by this incident which only shows how Fast & Furious went from being a B-grade racing film to an A-grade world phenom blockbuster, especially since Fast Five took a turn in the franchise's direction. Like the franchise itself, the cast is also growing by adding Hollywood vets Kurt Russell and Djimon Hounsou to Game of Thrones breakout star Nathalie Emmanuel who played Khaleesi's right hand woman, Missandei.

The story takes off right after the sixth one. Owen Shaw's brother, Deckard (Jason Statham) seeks revenge after what happened in the events of the sixth movie (apparently Owen survived the plane crash but Gisele didn't!). Deckard started hunting Dom's crew one by one, starting from Han which was killed in Tokyo. It was already Dom vs Deckard but Dom got an offer to more effectively locate Deckard wherever he may be, using a software called God's Eye. Dom and his crew need to get to God's Eye creator in order to use it to find Deckard.

Talk about a super convoluted plot! It would make sense IF Deckard isn't actually looking for the crew. What is the use of God's Eye when Deckard is actually the one who's going near Dom and his crew? That's like the biggest gaping plot hole in this movie. Then there's also a group of mercenaries whose allegiance and objectives are super vague. They're just there to bring a little hollow substance to the plot which obviously didn't work. But I can forgive that plot hole a little because it gave us Nathalie Emmanuel to shine in this film. Apparently Khaleesi broke the wheel and let Missandei out to hack some computers. The stunts were awesome and I got to see the film in IMAX 3D which is just amazing. But however, the never-ending action sequence is definitely too much for a 2.5 hour runtime. Your mind became numb for the repetitive action especially that silly Diesel vs Statham fight which was good for the first five minutes but that fight ending is so bad. The film under-used Jason Statham badly. And "When you're in a street fight, the street always wins" is one of your worst lines of the year.

Tyrese brings some humor and charm, while Vin Diesel is still that big, muscly good guy. It is a shame that Dwayne Johnson isn't joining much of the action here because everytime he's on screen the movie got way more interesting. Michelle Rodriguez is an all-round badass, she's like the poster girl for Hollywood badass and for the last two movies she has fought two MMA champions, how badass. And then there's Paul Walker whose death looms large over the film. Weta's Paul Walker CGI is amazingly seamless, it won't show until you started looking for it. It's so good. The ending for this movie is just perfect. It's a perfect sendoff to Paul Walker, obviously one of the many Hollywood stars who went away too soon. The movie did an honorable way for Paul Walker and it is very hard not to shed a tear during the ending. Despite being the lesser of Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, Fast & Furious 7 is just a great start to what might be the most explosive summer in years. Fast & Furious 7: rated 3/4