Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) seeks revenge on Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and their family for what happened to his brother in London. In order to find Shaw before he finds them, they help government agent Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) rescue a hacker and their device that can locate anyone on the planet.
If you know what the Fast & Furious franchise is about, you’ll know what to expect from this film. There’s the ridiculously amazing car stunts, the great team/ family dynamics and there will be some girls in skimpy outfits. It’s over the top and brilliant.
All the stunts and fight scenes are incredible and the trailer really just teases them. The sequence where the cars drop out of the plane goes on a lot longer and it’s a sequence that just keeps on giving. The various fight scenes are also great – I especially liked the one between Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Kara (Ronda Rousey).
Statham is a great addition to the Fast & Furious franchise. He is a threatening presence throughout the whole film and always manages to show up and cause problems for the team when they’re least expecting it. His character’s introduction is truly brilliant, you don’t see him do much in the way of violence but it definitely establishes him as a force to be reckoned with.
Like the previous films in the franchise, in Fast & Furious 7 each character has their time to shine. Whether that’s Roman (Tyresse Gibson) crashing a party and making it incredibly awkward, Tej (Ludacris) hacking into a high security penthouse or Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) with a huge machine gun. It was great seeing so many of these characters who do feel like a family back together again.
Obviously production on Fast & Furious 7 was put on hold due to the tragic death of Paul Walker. You can tell that rewrites had to happen because in a sense it feels like two films, one with Deckard Shaw as the main bad guy and one with the secret government agent Mr. Nobody, that have been pushed into one big film. This means that some plot threads don’t always work and it would have been nice to fully concentrate on one aspect of the film but with what they had, they have made another action-packed, funny and thrilling film.
Fast & Furious 7 is a bit bittersweet really, especially if you’re a big fan of the franchise and its characters. It gives a wonderful tribute to Paul Walker and the character of Brian O’Conner that will leave just about anyone chocked up. It’s a fitting end to the film, and (possibly though probably not due to how much money it’s set to make) to the franchise as a whole. Fast & Furious 7 is big, bold and a lot of fun and is possibly even better than the last film. 4/5.
Elena Square Eyes 
FF7 was actually the first film I’ve seen from the franchise and even though the little moments weren’t as resonating to me as it should have been, particularly between the characters (because I lacked backstory), there were still profound feels by the end of the film (knowing that PW IV had passed). And even if the ending was rewritten, I really liked the treatment of the last shot in the film (starting from the diverging road). Bittersweet indeed.
Cheers,
Joey
I always wondered what people who haven’t seen the previous films would have taken away from it. Because in some senses you don’t really need to have since it’s a new story so you just need to know a bad guy is after the team, but then there’s all the character beats that add a lot more emotional punch and context to the film. The friend I saw FF7 with had only seen the first three films so he had a bit of context and still really enjoyed the film.
Do you know want to go and watch the entire franchise? Because I’ve seen a lot of people who have gone to see FF7 having seen none/only the odd film before and now really want to watch it all from the beginning.
I loved the final scene with Vin Diesel’s voice-over – I seriously had all the feels at that point.
Would I go see the entirety of the franchise? Perhaps. It’s not in my immediate to-watch-list but maybe eventually? I’m not -that- much of an adrenaline junkie for cars so that might implicate my willingness.
PW IV’s character arc ended on a good note (I’d assume) so I’m curious how die-hard fans will take not seeing his family (maybe?) in the next F&F installment (if they actually go through with it).
Ah, the feels are back.
I want to see this movie!
Enjoy it when you do!