Furious 7

Justin Lin's departure from the franchise and his replacement by James Wan resulted in a mixed bag of a picture.

Firstly, the plot is filled with conveniences & cheap commercial inclusions at every turn of the corner! Take a step back & look at the overall product, and you'd realize there isn't a single reason for any of these events to happen. All of it are stuffed in with the hope that nothing falls off, like how you would do to a wardrobe. Another baby on-the-way cliché, finding excuse to go to Abu Dhabi, enemy-gathering due to common goal, Mr. Nobody's (Kurt Russell) covert ops team's out-of-nowhere ambush in the parking garage, cameo appearance by Ronda Rousey just because, prince throwing a party just a day after Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) & crew's arrival, Ramsey's (Nathalie Emmanuel) addition for the sake of boobs & skin show and Deckard Shaw's (Jason Statham) timely appearances wherever the crew is at, be it at the funeral or action showdowns. You are guided for a revenge tale, then this whole story about God's Eye jumps in. So, what are we focusing on right now?

Secondly, there is a severe drop in presentation quality. This is largely due to the tacky screenplay, cuts that aren't smooth, flashback-displaying method, shitty slow-motion techniques & cheesy camera angles, fast-forwards and navigations. Some of the scene transitions are good though. Thirdly, exposition heavy! Dialogues to tell us who's Deckard to Owen (Luke Evans), obvious recaps for audiences about Owen; for both new watchers & the old ones to refresh their memories, and even calling a person by name! Chris Morgan, what happened?

Action choreographies is a 50-50 here. Larger than life stunt sequences are mostly done very well. House bombing, Dominic's car brushing with a chopper on air, black convoy throttling across a row of trees, Ramsey's car swap, Dominic's vehicle being surrounded at the edge of Caucasus Mountains, Toretto-Shaw heads on car collision with the former's being lifted atop, Brian's (Paul Walker) whip swaddling under a tower truck, Kiet (Tony Jaa) sliding down on Brian across a stack of stairs, barrels falling off a lorry, Predator chase, formation forming behind Tej armour, Toretto stepping on an already splintered building that would eventually cause a greater rumble down are some really expertly crafted moments made possible with immense help from the fast paced cinematographer, almost flawless Computer Generated Imagery designers & dedicated stunt doubles!

But what about the hand brawls? That's the inferior part! Come on guys, you've hired Tony Jaa, the man behind Ong Bak films. Hand brawls should have been near perfect if not perfect! The same goes to the shootings! Lousy is the one-word description. In Fast Five, you have the car into river launch. In Fast & Furious 6, you have Dominic into sky launch. In Furious 7, watch out for the parachuting set of muscle cars dropped down from 10,000 feet above! Easily, the best part of the whole motion picture! Brian's narrow escape from a collapsing bus at the sharp cliff reminiscent of Uncharted: Among Thieves & Lykan Hypersport piercing through Etihad Towers and ending up on a window edge are great adrenaline rushes too!

See, it is believed that the cardinal root cause to this feature's underperformance is the change in directors. Makers need to understand what is a particular franchise about, its travel and where it's coming from. For Justin Lin, Chris Morgan & crew to get the films right, it took them 2 failures, before tasting 2 phenomenal successes in terms of product quality. There were trials & errors in establishing the very fundamental fabric for the series, in terms of the universe, code of conducts, and the logics that are inbound, before getting everything right in Fast Five. Now you pass the mantle on for another filmmaker to helm, chances of the understanding to sync is thin and even if it happens, it will take a while. James Wan's forte is horror as it has always been, and while it would be unfair to say he did a terrible job for an action movie, his efforts are merely satisfactory for this instalment. There are many instances he strays away from walking symmetrically on the fine line for the stunts & logics. He doesn't see the audiences & the movie from the eyes of Justin Lin. Deckard & Dom banging their cars with each other, Hobbs exiting hospital by breaking his cement plague bandage as he wishes, Deckard Shaw single-handedly defeated a whole team of S.W.A.T. and precisely the part where Dom survives without any concussions or whatsoever after somersaulting from a hilltop to bottom is what we call, bringing things too far off the radar!

The fair amount of importance provided for the acting performances is praiseworthy. You could understand Letty's (Michelle Rodríguez) inner conflict as she struggles to remember who she is. But the memory revival at the climax to wake Dom up is so campy & laughably bad! Besides, before the action starts grinding, you could also see how life has slowed down for all these characters. There are no more thrill rides. Even Dom is out of shape. These little attentions are signs of effort. It's a good acknowledgment to have done a funeral for Han (Sung Kang). We could only wish the same for Gisele (Gal Gadot). With this, the tie-in with Tokyo Drift is finally complete. Relationship between Dom and Elena (Elsa Pataky) is addressed as well.

Dwayne Johnson as Hobbs is literally the best part of all these films since Fast Five, and the makers have decided to lay him down on bed for 90% of the runtime. It's like removing the picture's life support. His absence is really felt. But whenever he's onscreen, it's awesome, especially the climax & his fisticuffs with Deckard Shaw! Paul Walker's passing is a huge loss for the franchise; the guy is charming. But to its advantage, the script rode on the fact and milked a lot of money worldwide. Face morphing is bearable; you can tell it with ease whenever its onscreen. Most of the shots are done in complete darkness, so that any mistakes could be camouflaged. B storyline regarding his absence henceforth is nicely patched up, and as you track back the journey he has travelled with Vin Diesel aka Dominic Toretto in this 14 years, it's undeniably touching. Thanks for walking down the memory lane with 'See You Again'. A fitting farewell indeed.

Mr. Nobody and his men did not put a bullet through Deckard Shaw & arrest him right away in the remote factory. Maybe they had no intention to disturb the antagonist's lunch time. Speaking of Mr. Nobody, why is that beer dialogue necessary? Although the characters are established to be less vulnerable towards mishaps and they can flirt with disasters just to walk out in a close shave, this is the aspect that removes any sorts of tension & emotional drive in the picture. When you fail to give a slice of reality to your action protagonists, the execution would end up fake as him/her is no longer portrayed as human beings. You clearly know that your hero/heroine would win no matter what. It would be impossible to induce fun & nail-biting excitements after that.

Lykan Hypersport in the prince's penthouse was truly as described, a beast! Dialogues such as: "I could be an Arab… a black Arab", "His mother would wish that she'd never had opened those legs" and "That's what you do to a beast; lock it in a cage!" were resounding while cobwebby phrases like "show time" and "one last ride" were boring. Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce was present to provide his usual rib-tickling antics which ceased to impress after a period of time in the film. Most of the times, it either misses the mark or feels unnecessary. Dom's facial reaction when he exclaimed: "Go!" to Brian upon holding the supercar on tight was uproarious! Tim Hays' sound mixing deserves a special mention. This instalment may not be the most furious one in the series, but it was certainly fast enough to seize your attentions for the majority portions.