Review of Furious 7 (2015) by Scott H — 15 Sep 2015

Fast & Furious is now rivalling Police Academy for the number of sequels in that there has now been seven films in the series. However, where by Police Academy:Mission to Moscow they were not so much flogging a dead horse as turning it into a Tesco Value Meal, F&F is actually getting stronger. It was helped by the addition of Dwayne'The Rock' Johnson who added a spark to a series which was starting to show signs of lacklustre. F&F7 builds on this and whilst it doesn't reach the heights of its predecessor, it's still a cracking film and well worthy of a night in with the popcorn.

The action this time moves from London to Azerbaijan to Dubai to Los Angeles. Plot wise, the film follows on from the last one in that the brother of the baddie in last film - played by Jason Stratham - decides to avenge his brother by hunting down the team. This leads to lots of car action and susperb stunts.

The F&F films follow a set formula. Lost of glamorous cars, lots of glamorous locations and lots of glamorous girls and wisely decides not to deviate from this. The stunts are superb - the scene where the Hypervenom Supercar jumps from one skyscraper to another in Dubai and the cars fall out of the plane and go flying are just one of several stunning such scenes in the film. However some take it too far - there's no way a Didge Charger could out run an Audi RS8 V10 irrespective of whether it had Nitro or not and if you tried to land a car by parachute on to the road you'd snap it in half. But F&F works best if you don't question the maths. So, to sum up. A good film although not as good as the previous one, assuming you switch off your brain at the start.

Finally, it cannot have passed your notice that one of the stars of the film, Paul Walker, tragically was killed in a car accident whilst the film was being made, albeit not during shooting of it. As such, he's not in the end of the film as much as would be expected and where he is some nifty CGI plus use of his brother is used. This is done so well you don't notice the join and there's a wonderful end scene where tribute is paid to him. It's moving, poignant and beautifully done.