Mei ManuelCars don’t fly and definitely not a one of only seven car worth $3.5 million. But in Furious 7, they made it fly alright. In three buildings no less in the skyscrapers of Abu Dhabi.
Dominic Toreto and his family are back for what could be considered the most heartbreaking installment to the Fast and the Furious franchise. While filming the installment, many were devastated when Paul Walker (who plays Brian O’Connor) died from a vehicular accident in 2013 while promoting charity work for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Speculations as to how the production team would continue without Walker rose up throughout the hiatus but the team delivered and gave us Furious 7.
The movie picks up from Tokyo Drift (FF3) and Fast and the Furious 6 where Shaw’s brother (played by Jason Statham) slowly targets members of the group who crippled his brother from the previous film. The group included Dominic Toreto (played by Vin Diesel), Brian O’Connor (played by Paul Walker), Leticia Ortiz (played by Michelle Rodriguez), Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Chris Bridges) and Han Seoul-Oh (Sung Kang). Shaw first takes out Han and even targets DSS agent Hobbs (played by Dwayne Johnson) while getting the info on Dom’s team. The group, of course, reassembles despite the risk in order to apprehend Shaw lest place the family at risk.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem like the story was rewritten due to Walker’s death as it still featured the same street and Latin American culture and music, supercars of all shapes and sizes, love, revenge and most especially, family. The usual comic relief is given to us by Roman and Tej (perfect partnership from these very talented actors) and the fierce love and loyalty by each one of them still made it feel like it is the actual story.
But there were scenes of too many close shaves for O’Connor that made you remember that the actor isn’t really there in some of these scenes. It was heart stopping to watch because you don’t know how the production team would retire O’Connor’s character at all. He had too many close shaves in it. But the ending, it was heart breaking. I won’t spoil you people because if you haven’t watched the first films, you wouldn’t really get the emotions running in that ending. It was priceless.
Aside from that heart breaking scenes for O’Connor, I did love the humor behind some of the one-liners delivered by Roman and Tej, mostly of Roman. I pity Tej for being stuck with Roman but hey, a guy has his moments even if he fails in them so much. I did also like the flying in Abu Dhabi scene (Cars don’t fly!). I also found Hobbs’ return to the whole fray with his cool scene with his daughter and his machine gun to be totally awesome. My mum would definitely like Statham’s character though :))
I will definitely miss this franchise, kudos to the Fast and the Furious team for a job well done. And, like how it ended,…
For Paul