'Furious 7' is graceless but handles Paul Walker's exit well
The death of Paul Walker during the filming of 鈥淔urious 7鈥� in聽November 2013 inevitably overshadows the movie, which was retooled to聽provide the illusion that he was alive for the entire shoot. Since the movie聽is otherwise a turbo-charged crash-and-burn clobberfest, this note of real-world morbidity makes for an unsettlingly strange combo.
If a thriller is only as good as its bad guy, 鈥淔urious 7鈥� does a fairly聽good job with Jason Statham鈥檚 lean and hungry Deckard Shaw, whose聽brother鈥檚 injuries, inflicted by the Fast and Furious crew, he aims to聽avenge by knocking off the crew en masse. His first encounter, with Dwayne聽Johnson, is a real thudathon. A later street fight between Shaw and Vin聽Diesel鈥檚 Dom recalls 鈥淲hen Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth.鈥澛�
Dom and his team are hired by a shady (but apparent good guy)聽operative (Kurt Russell) to capture from terrorists an all-seeing聽surveillance system called God鈥檚 Eye. In exchange, they will get the聽assistance of a private army to bag Shaw. All of this is an excuse聽for scenes like the one in which the crew drive their cars out of a plane聽and parachute in midair. Best sequence: Diesel and Walker crash a聽super-expensive (alas, brakeless) sports car through the picture windows聽of not one but two Abu Dhabi skyscrapers. Presumably these scenes were聽done with CGI, but who knows?
The only grace note in this otherwise determinedly graceless movie is聽the classy way Walker鈥檚 exit is handled. To say more is to say too much. Grade: C+ (Rated PG-13 for prolonged frenetic sequences of violence, action and mayhem, suggestive content and brief strong language.)
