Movie Review: Fast & Furious 7

Movie: Fast and Furious 7

Rated: M

Rating: 7.5/10

While it sounds ridiculous, only the Fast and Furious team could stage an impromptu car chase through a cemetery during a funeral and make it feel relevant to the plot.

But before you dismiss FF7 as simply another instalment of mindless action with too much reliance on fossil fuel, it manages to turn the dial from 7-11 in jaw-dropping fashion.

Aussie director James Wan (Saw, Insidious) is in the driver's seat for the first time and, while he had to cope with the obvious challenge of losing a co-star midway through production, the film rolls like a well-oiled machine.

Kicking off amid destruction of comical proportions at a hospital, where the steely Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham, The Transporter) vows retribution for his critically-injured younger brother, we get a taste of what's to come.

Courtesy of the last FF instalment, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and co are to blame for Shaw Jr's bedridden state and the die is cast for revenge.

The team, however, is back home in America to lead normal lives and it's here we see a believable side to the posse's characterisation.

There aren't enough words here to explore every facet of the surprisingly complex plot but the technology is next-level - notably the omnipresent God's Eye surveillance technology spruiked by Frank Petty (Kurt Russell) - and the stunts reach new heights.

By heights I mean literally, as this 2.5-hour behemoth is shot well off the ground on many occasions to stunning effect. Cue the dramatic UAE skyscraper scene.

Arguably, Statham's character as the rogue special-forces assassin Shaw steals the show. His Terminator-style resolve and Jackal-type smarts see every trick up his well-attired sleeves delivered spectacularly.

One criticism is the hand-to-hand fight scenes, which come directly from the Kill Bill/Matrix school of absurdity and are a little tiresome.

But the elephant in the cinema is how Wan and co will handle the lack of star Walker for the second half of the film, or pay tribute to the sad coincidence of his real-life death.

Without giving too much away, let's just say they couldn't have handled it much better.