Film: Furious 7
Director: James Wan
Script: Chris Morgan
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Kurt Russell, Jason Statham.
Is the correct entry point to a franchise the seventh instalment? Probably not. But if you begin near the end then you'll always have the older films to watch and enjoy. I can now binge watch films 1-6 should I wish to. So with no knowledge of the previous six films in the franchise am I even the right person to be reviewing this film? Certainly, as I can come to the franchise with a fresh point of view unencumbered by previous instalments (successes or failures) and enjoy this film for what it is: a fun, crazy, high octane romp.
In the film Dominic (Diesel) and Brian (Walker) are being hunted down by Deckard Shaw (Statham) who is looking to avenge his brother. It's a decent plot considering how tough it must be to come up with new ideas for these characters!
The direction is stylish and slick. The actors are just on the right side of cheesy and the action and stunts are breathtaking. It's great to see real life stunts being handled so well, that have been, in most cases, very nicely enhanced by judicial use of CGI.
All of the principle players in this long running series are back and on fine form. The film suffered some delays after the sad and untimely death of lead star Paul Walker. But film pays it's respects to him and honours him by using his brothers, Caleb and Cody as stand-ins to complete Walker's remaining scenes.
Made on a budget of $190M it smashed through $400M within just one week of its release and went on to gross a truly staggering figure of over $1.5B making it the fifth highest grossing film of all time.
I'll certainly be taking episodes 1-6 for a spin and revving up for episode 8 in April 2017.
