Walking into a Fast and Furious film, you know you’re about to be dealt an awful lot of absurdity.
It’s something the movie goer must embrace emphatically, because any hesitation will pull you out of the Furious universe and leave you chuckling instead.
Directed by James Wan with a screenplay by Chris Morgan, it was Paul Walker’s last film before his untimely death last year.
He died halfway through filming, so the film was finished with stunt doubles and his own brothers filling in for him, with computer-generated images used for his face.
In the film, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) searches for the gang who put down his brother.
He kills Han (Sung Kang) and decimates the house that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O’Conner (Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) live in.
The crew get together to try and find Shaw and the aforementioned absurdity begins to set in.
Visually, it’s a stunning film, with meticulous detail taken for slow-motion captures that look like comic book pages.
The cars are, as always, utterly spectacular and hard to look away from.
There’s a chase scene set in a mountain path, and it’s shot beautifully, breaking away from close-up to aerial shots at perfect moments, with the sound muffled or blaring depending on the camera angle.
That said, there’s quite a bit missing from the film, specifically a cohesive plot.
Suspending belief is all well and good, but surely we should be helped along somewhat.
The acting is also somewhat embarrassing at certain moments, true action movie dramatics that leave you cringing.
Part of the film is set in Abu Dhabi, which is exciting for anyone from or residing in the Middle East – but, while the opulence of the upper class was portrayed, it was also offensive in parts.
Safar, a supposed contact in Abu Dhabi, was not portrayed by an Arab actor – instead, it’s an Indian actor with a truly terrible Arabic accent.
When Arabic is spoken in the film, the pronunciation is incorrect, which is grating usually but especially frustrating when the movie is actually filmed on location.
That said, there are some hilarious little moments throughout the film which will leave people chortling.
In the end, it’s truly a mixed bag of a film, but an interesting way to bid goodbye to an actor beloved around the world.
Furious 7 is now showing at City Centre Bahrain, Seef, Saar and Al Jazira cinemas and has a running time of 134 minutes.
