Review of Furious 7 (2015) by Ockthniel — 06 Apr 2015

I really wanted to like this movie. There haven't been many in the series that I thought were really good. The first one is by far the best in my opinion and I believe that it has to do with the more limited budget forcing more realistic car sequences and more believable action. These types of movies need to get back to the type of chases that made Bullet and the French Connection chases classics that people still talk about.

I thought having Statham in this movie was going to raise the fight sequences to the quality of movies like The Transporter, but I was wrong. Statham's talents were mostly wasted as were Tony Jaa's. They could have easily been replaced by just about anybody and nothing would have been different. These guys really should have been on opposite sides of this fight so an epic clash could be filmed.

With Diesel doing voice acting in movies like Iron Giant and recently Guardians of the Galaxy, I feel like there is a very legitimate actor under all of that muscle that has been mostly overlooked or paired with bad scripts for most of his career. This is no real exception. All of the dialogue between him and Rodgriguez was cringe worthy and the filler dialogue between wasn't much better.

The only thing I thought this movie got right was the tasteful tribute to Paul Walker. The way they handled it brought satisfactory closure to the character but leaves it open for further installments. Although, at this point, I must say unless they are willing to up the quality of the writing and get back to more realistic action (which can be just as entertaining) they should just stop now.