Furious 7 (2015)
Directed by James Wan
Deckard Shaw seeks revenge against Dominic Toretto and his family for his comatose brother.
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5 films that influenced Furious 7
What critics say influenced Furious 7
The presence of Kurt Russell reminded me unhelpfully of the dazzling climactic car chase in Quentin Tarantino’s otherwise dull Death Proof, a chase done without computer enhancement of any kind.
Indeed, Wan’s set pieces work up such a lather it doesn’t matter that one rips “Death Proof” — with “Death Proof” star Kurt Russell watching from a monitor, no less — or that when he splits these sequences into parts, “Return of the Jedi”-style, he sometimes forgets to keep returning to individual threads.
I tend generally to be rather low-fi with my car chases: I'm a Vanishing Point or Death Proof type of guy, and thus like to see my as few cuts as possible, so they have to show all their work.
While the stunt doubles aren't as blatantly obvious as the ones used in " Game of Death " and special effects technology has come a long way since Brandon Lee passed away while filming " The Crow ," the result in "Furious 7" is that it's still in the same vein.
But all’s good because it truly — and arguably even moreso than the last, still ridiculous two entries — never lets up, never lets the laws of the universe dictate events and, most importantly, never performs its shall we say unlikely acts with the lame timing and staging of, say, “The Boondock Saints”’ face-palmy toilet building jump.
The franchise then stumbled a bit before finding a match in the kinetic camera of director Justin Lin, who helmed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift .
The “Fast and Furious” series almost died after the dismal “2 Fast 2 Furious,” but in 2006, director Justin Lin revived the franchise with the immensely enjoyable “Tokyo Drift.”
After catching back up with 2007’s spin-off-y “Tokyo Drift” — which technically means that entry’s good ol’ boy star Lucas Black, in his cameo here, is still playing a high schooler, despite looking like he has high school kids of his own — it winds up a completely different movie.
Then he's off to Japan to kill another member of the crew, Han (Sung Kang) — a death shown at the end of No. 6 and in No. 3 ("The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"), finally sorting out the series' long-tangled timeline.
Every player, from Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez to Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson and even Lucas Black (“Tokyo Drift”) gets a big moment, a fight or comic showcase.
We learn in Furious 7 that Statham's character started his killing spree in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which was made in 2006, back when these films were still B-movies and not blockbusters, yet is set after the events of F&F 6. Yes, it's confusing.
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Never mind the tear-jerking coda in which the producers pay homage to the late co-star Paul Walker; they already proved they could raise the dead in “Fast & Furious 6,” when they cynically resurrected the left-for-dead Letty (Michelle Rodriguez).
You’ll recall that Owen succumbed to rough justice at the end of Fast & Furious 6.
Starting with Fast Five ‘s gravity-defying cliff jump, Justin Lin took to Fast & Furious 6 with every intention to blow his previous film’s scope away in a haze of NOS residue – and he did.
Speed demon Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew (Dwayne Johnson, the late Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, et al.) are being hunted by the brother of a vanquished villain from Fast & Furious 6 (Jason Statham); they join with a shadowy government operative (Kurt Russell) to turn the tables on their pursuer.
The next picture, 2013's Fast & Furious 6, was almost as good, and now we have Furious 7, which rests just below that one on the totem pole.