Furious 7
(2015)
(2015)
(SPOILERS) With the way the sixth sequel to The Fast and the Furious has been
understandably overshadowed and informed by the loss of Paul Walker, you’d be
forgiven for thinking it might exhibit a more sombre, reflective side to the
series. Not a bit of it, any more than a franchise that continues to make an
asset of the glib emotional inclusiveness that is Dom’s decree “I don’t have friends, I got family” has
previously shown depth, thematic or otherwise. Rather, the most appealing aspect
of Furious 7 is how far it goes to
embrace the absurdity of the series in ever more excessive ways; this whole
movie feels like it’s taking its cues from the ludicrously endless runway
climax of Fast & Furious 6.
I can’t say James Wan’s inheritance of the series from
Justin Lin (numbers 3, 4, 5 and 6) has made a huge visual difference. Assured
horrormeister Wan has been careful to follow Lin’s lead, both to good and bad
results. There remains a surfeit of unnecessary shakycam during the fight sequences,
either through decree that this is what works for the series or because of some
deep-rooted insecurity over the choreography. It doesn’t quite seem him (his
thing for rotating the camera during a smackdown is much more like it). He also
appears to be delivering the booty call moments as a contractual obligation,
rather than putting his heart and soul into the lady lumps and humps.
In contrast, the automotive set pieces are mostly clearly defined
in geography. They even occasionally allow several whole seconds between cuts.
Wan has fully embraced the visual hyperbole inherent in a series that, like the
Bond movies, needs to get bigger and bolder
each time. As a consequence, there’s sufficient room to embrace a signature “wow’
moment in the same way 007 reveals his Union Jack parachute at the start of The Spy Who Loved Me; Dom and Brian
flying a car through not one but two Abu Dhabi skyscrapers achieves a batty
magnificence, particularly because Wan hangs back and allows them sail through
the air in long shot.
That’s not the best sequence, although it’s a delirious
doozy. Furious 7 is frontloaded (by
which, it seems to take an eternity to get going but at two and a quarter hours
the best material still comes during the first half), with an immediately preposterous
but superbly sustained rescue bid.
Dom’s “family” are set on a quest to release hacker Ramsey (Game of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel) from
the clutches of mercenary Jakande (Djimon Hounsou). The reasons for this are
about as convoluted and unimportant as the plots of the last two pictures; it’s
all about the MacGuffin, which is tentatively linked to vengeance-vowing
brother of Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), Deckard (the Stath). There was a hi-tech
MacGuffin last time, and so it goes again, with God’s Eye, a device that can
use any digital recording device to track any given person anywhere in the
world (anyone looking for a commentary on the surveillance state herein best
look elsewhere). The US government, personified by Kurt Russell’s covert ops
guy Frank Perry, wants to secure this device, and in return for his help Dom gets
to use their resources to stop
Deckard.
While they vow at the outset to finish him off for good,
Dom’s the sort who hits people repeatedly with a couple of iron bars rather
than shooting them in the head (a sad indictment of our times that so many of
our heroes today appear happy to inflict GBH but blanche at the whole
enchilada). Brian seems to have no such qualms but, as he’s an ex-police
officer, the makers presumably consider it acceptable for him to shoot people
with impunity.
The rationale for embroiling Dom et al in this mission is
slim. Basically along the lines of “You have to go and get him before he comes
and gets you”. Since Deckard continually pops up, like an unstoppably bald and British
T1000, wherever Dom’s international trek leads them, this doesn’t seem to be a
particularly well thought out scheme. Especially since, when they get the
device, they promptly lose it to the bad guys, so the finale becomes exactly what
they were trying to avoid in the first place.
All this is forgivable, since the sequence that starts with
skydiving cars (it’s a nice touch that, in one of the innumerable establishing
scenes, Brian tells his son “Cars can’t fly”; Wan
goes on to prove the exactly opposite on more than one occasion) landing in the
Caucasus Mountains, where they engage in an extended high speed pursuit that
leads to an Italian Job-homaging bit
where Brian attempts to avoid being expunged on a big bus hanging precariously
over a cliff. Parts of this were shown off in early trailers, but such
spoilering does nothing to dent the kinetic thrill of this sequence in context.
Following jaunts in the Caucasus and Abu Dhabi, the return to LA ought to
be grounding, but contrarily the problem is it lacks of focus compared to the
previous set pieces (however OTT). It’s a “drive around, blow shit up” affair,
in which keeping a track of who needs to do what and why at any given moment is
hit and miss. In particular, Letty seems to arrive on scene only when everyone
else gets into trouble, the lazy cow.
The big fisticuffs face-off is de rigueur, but it’s never
especially enthralling to see Dom in a fight (Diesel’s other franchise
character Riddick, on the other hand). Much more arresting is the manner in
which Dom manages to climb out of ever-more fatality-inducing car wrecks
without a scratch, like a giant walnut refusing to crack. Until Dwayne Johnson
enters the fray, this sequence also lacks sufficient self-consciousness to its
silliness (there’s a military helicopter, and a drone, flying about Los Angeles
wreaking maximum carnage and no one, military or police, has been scrambled to
bring them down? It’s like terrorist alerts never happened).
As ever, the ensemble is wafer-thin in characterisation. Dom
doesn’t even have a character, at least not one that I can make out, and Vin’s
complete lack of chemistry wit Michelle Rodriguez never fails to impress. In a
particularly illustrative touch, we get to bypass all the uncomfortably
unconvincing lovey-dovey stuff between the twosome when it is revealed they
were hitherto married. Letty had quite understandably forgotten.
Walker is, as ever, kind of non-descript (he was at his best
back in 2 Fast 2 Furious, where he
was de facto lead), but even more so as so much of his presence is the result
of dialogue-lite body/brother double/CGI stand-ins. It makes for a curious send
off, simultaneously sincere and overdone, since any viewer with a paucity of background
knowledge will be increasingly considering focusing on where the joins are.
When it comes to not one but two send-offs, both fairly passively presented
(and both quite touching in their way) it all becomes a little bit strained. The
“Too slow” line, with which Brian is mocked by a bad guy early on, is given a
satisfying pay-off, however. Worryingly, as in 6, Mia (Jordana Brewster) is content to do f-all and happily send
her husband into harm’s way. It’s almost as if she wants to get rid of him.
It’s no surprise then that, yet again, Tyrese Gibson (Roman)
and Ludacris (Tej) who steal the show whenever they’re onscreen. They’re the
ones with real chemistry in these pictures, and their good-natured repertoire
of insults never gets old. Tyrese is particularly well catered for, puffed up
with the desire to be acknowledged as an alpha male (then dissolving into
abject cowardice) and an impromptu compering gig.
Lucas Black also returns, 9 years older than in his last
appearance but required to act as if it’s the blink of an eye. If the series
continues (and box office decrees that it will) they could do worse than get an
actor of Black’s chops on board full time (it’s been suggested he’s signed for
two more sequels).
The real knockout here, in a manner that makes one wonder
how one goes about ensuring he’s best used elsewhere, is Johnson. He’s merely
required to bookend the picture, having a (quite good, better than Diesel’s)
punch up with the Stath at the start that leaves him hospital bound. It’s when
he is roused from his hospital bed during the finale that Wan really goes for
broke drawing attention to have utterly daft this all is. The Rock tears the
plaster cast off his broken arm and goes to work, telling his doting daughter a
sitter is coming.
He then proceeds to drive an ambulance off a bypass onto a
drone and picks up a very big gun that he uses to lay waste to all and sundry.
These scenes are an absolute hoot, and completely salvage a rather so-so final
act. Perhaps Johnson be showing up in all his movies for about 20 minutes only, in a state of maximum self-awareness, and he'd finally bust out as a bona fide mega-star.
New additions-wise, well the Stath fits right in, but no one
has bothered integrating him into the story. He’s also allowed a chance to come
back at a later date, Hannibal Lecter style, the closest 7 gets to suggesting a continuance of the series. Hounsou is
actually pretty poor. Aside from sporting a white goatee, there’s nothing
memorable about his character or performance. Emmanuel is very cute, and provides
a requisite bikini moment.
The greatest of the newbies, however, is the great Kurt
Russell. Snake Plissken, RJ MacReady, Jack Burton, Gabe Cash, Captain Ron.
Frank Petty might not be up there with those iconic roles but Russell is having
an absolute blast, revelling in the cocksure wit of his character and his
penchant for Belgian ale. The only shame of it is he doesn’t get a scene with
Johnson. The particular highlight has Kurt going all kick-ass, donning night
vision glasses with a gun in each hand. They’ll be wise to bring Kurt back for 8.
If the series were to end here, it would be in a good place.
I’d probably have to see them all again to judge, but off the top of my head
I’d put this just behind Fast Five as
the second best of franchise. How they will go forward with movies all about
family when that family has been forcibly reduced is questionable but, as I
said at the top, it’s always been a rather facile hook. Wave wads of cash under
the main players’ noses and the show will go on. Diesel certainly needs his one
viable movie series, and he’s been talking up both 8 and 9 (with Russell
involved). With the Universal marketing team’s capacity for truncation, I
wouldn’t bet against F8 (“As F8 would have it”)
arriving sometime around 2017, just in time for Vin’s 50th
celebrations.
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