Furious 7 (8/10): The over-blown action scenes continue to improve the beloved franchise

"This time it ain't just about being fast.”

James Wan, who is well known for directing horror films (The Conjuring and Saw), took over the seventh film in this franchise replacing Justin Lin who had been sitting on the director’s chair since the third installment. What I found most interesting about this franchise is that it didn’t seem like it was going anywhere after its solid debut in 2001 since the first couple of sequels focused on different characters and storylines. Even when they got the entire cast back together in 2009 for the fourth film I didn’t feel like it was anything special. I’d always mildly enjoyed the films, but it wasn’t until Fast Five that I was really engaged with the series. Justin Lin may have not impressed me before, but when that film came out he decided to have fun with the overblown action scenes and audiences embraced it completely. We had the team reuniting together being chased by tanks and planes and pulling off nearly mission impossible tasks. My greatest concern for this film was that Wan wouldn’t follow that basic formula that had elevated the franchise in the first place. But in an early scene in the film those fears were soon gone when Wan practically gives the audience a wink by having Brian (Walker) telling his son that “cars don’t fly” when he playfully throws a small toy car through the window. We were about to find out that that claim wasn’t necessarily true because throughout this film we actually see several cars fly during the spectacular action scenes. 

By the end of Furious Six the franchise was tied perfectly together by uniting the events that took place in Tokyo during the third film with the present. In the fifth and sixth installments Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker), Tej (Ludacirs), and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) had finally found financial stability and cleaned their names to return home. The character of Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) had helped reinvigorate the franchise and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) was brought back from the dead (well actually she never really died, but fans of the franchise know what I mean). Mia (Jordan Brewster) and Brian were enjoying their newfound family life, but as we found out in the end of the sixth film, Owen’s brother Deckard (Jason Statham) was set on avenging him. Their seemingly peaceful life  is interrupted as the team begins to be hunted down by this dangerous British criminal. Loretto is offered the opportunity to flip the papers on Deckard from being hunted to becoming the hunters when a secret government official known as Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) offers him a deal. A Somalian mercenary (Djimon Hounsou) has kidnapped a hacker known as Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) who has developed a computer program known as God’s Eye that basically allows you to find anyone across the globe in a matter of seconds. If Toretto’s team can rescue Ramsey and retrieve God’s Eye he will let them use it to track down Deckard and catch him off guard. And so the adventure across the globe begins with flying cars, helicopters and droids exploding across the mountains of the Middle East, the elegant buildings in Abu Dhabi, and the city of Los Angeles. 

Gisele and Han were part of the reason why I enjoyed the previous films so much so I was worried that their absence in this film would hurt the movie, but the addition of Jason Statham as the main villain of the film elevated this to a higher level. There are great fight scenes between him and Dwayne Johnson and then with Vin Diesel that were incredibly entertaining. These are probably the best action stars of our generation and when the fighting choreography is filmed correctly you can’t go wrong with these guys.  There are also some fantastic action scenes involving fast car chases across a gorgeous mountain that ends in a Jurassic Park like cliffhanger. The action scenes are overblown, but that is what makes them so entertaining once you learn to accept the absurdity of it all and simply enjoy the ride. Over-the-top action scenes is what elevated this franchise in the first place and Furious 7 continues to play with that same premise taking advantage of Wan’s knowledgable work behind the camera and his use of different camera angles which makes the film look all the more entertaining. 

The greatest success of Furious 7 is being able to blend the incredibly fun action scenes with the dramatic elements involving the chemistry between the characters. We’ve grown to love these characters and each new addition always seems to work. Furious 7 takes some common themes from films like Mission Impossible or Ocean’s Eleven and applies them really well here. Tyrese Gibson plays a similar character to the one Matt Damon played in Ocean’s where he wants to prove his leadership qualities to the rest of the crew. There are elements recycled from other action films, but thanks to the cast it works extremely well in this franchise. And then you have the emotional aspect of this film surrounding Paul Walker’s untimely death. You can’t help but feel emotionally engaged towards his character knowing that the actor has recently passed away. There are several scenes of his face where the CGI seems evident, but the voice work was perfectly executed. The CGI never distracted me however, and I’m glad they decided to continue with the production of the film. The last five minutes are emotionally engaging and without spoiling the film all I can say is that the crew did him justice with a beautiful tribute. Furious 7 continues to build on an already engrossing franchise and it might just be my second favorite after Fast Five. 

My Review: Hours (5/10)

¨Every second counts.¨

Hours is Eric Heisserer's first feature film, but he is mostly known for his screenplays for The Thing (the 2010 version) and Final Destination 5. He takes a pretty interesting premise but fails in the delivery as the film has too many awkward moments with a lot of forced dialogues. Take the scene where Paul Walker's character is being given very bad news from a doctor concerning his wife. The scene felt entirely forced and never managed to draw the audience in. There are numerous scenes like that in Hours that just feel completely out of place. Paul Walker is on his own for the majority of the film and once the story began to drag it failed to engage me. There were few thrills and hardly any action scenes. For the most part it was just seeing Walker speaking out loud to his recently born infant, or to a rescue dog he encountered later on in the film. When he wasn't speaking to himself, the film gave us unnecessary flashbacks about how he and his wife met. Hours should've been a film full of tension, but Heisserer failed to deliver by adding so many unnecessary and forced scenes and not relying on Walker's physical performance alone.

The film takes place in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina as Nolan (Paul Walker) takes his pregnant wife, Abigail (Genesis Rodriguez), to a local hospital as she enters early labor. The Hurricane is about to hit the city hard while the doctors ask Nolan to stay in the waiting room while they treat Abigail. A few hours later Doctor Jeremy (TJ Hassan) comes bearing some bad news. Abigail had a complicated labor, the newborn baby has to stay on a ventilator for the next 48 hours until she learns how to breath on her own. The mother didn't make it. Making matters worse, the hospital is hit hard by the hurricane, forcing everyone to evacuate. Nolan is told to stay in the hospital with the baby until an ambulance can come back and take them to safer ground. Cut from the outside world, Nolan is on his own forced to make quick decisions in order to save his baby's life. 

If as the tagline suggests ¨Every second counts¨ than Eric Heisserer did a very lousy job because there are several seconds wasted on this film. It dragged during several moments making me feel like I was watching an over two hour film, when in reality it was just a 95 minute movie. Paul Walker isn't bad in this film, but he just isn't given the right material to carry a film on his own. The most exciting moments of the film came when a rescue dog showed up and it kind of brought life to an otherwise lifeless film. Hours is full of awkward and dull moments that bring down this film. Walker could have been given less dialogue and the flashbacks should've been cut out of the film. Some more external shots of the storm might have worked better because the wreckage scenes were pretty well shot. Overall it wasn't a terrible film, but it did fail to keep me entertained or invested in the story.

My Review: Fast and Furious 6 (8/10)

¨You don’t turn your back on family, even when they do.¨

Fast and Furious 6 and The Hangover Part 3 were both released today in what looks to be a tight box office race for the Memorial Day weekend. If you would have asked me a couple of years ago which film I would prefer to see, I would have definitely chosen to go see The Hangover Part 3 because I loved the first movie and thought it was a great comedy; I also enjoyed The Fast and The Furious film but wasn’t too pleased with the following three sequels. Then in 2011 when both Fast Five and The Hangover Part 2 came out, things completely changed for me. I was hooked with The Fast and Furious franchise while part two of The Hangover was a major letdown. That is why this weekend I decided to go for Fast and Furious 6 without a doubt, and I wasn’t disappointed. This might not be as good as the last film (which I think is the best in the franchise), but it lived up to expectations and was highly entertaining. This is Justin Lin´s fourth time in the director´s chair in this franchise and he seems to have had a great effect on these movies converting them into entertaining thrillers with some great action scenes. Screenwriter, Chris Morgan, is also back for the fourth time and he has managed to actually put some brains to these fast car races and create better characters. He´s developed these characters very well and made them interesting, and has also done a decent job at creating some memorable villains. The film is fast paced, has several thrills, great car chases, and some decent character development. Of course there are several flaws as well: unbelievable and laughable scenes involving guys jumping off moving vehicles and landing safely all the time, and some very predictable moments and foreseeable twists. I still had a fun time with this film and laughed more than I thought I would.  

If you thought that Toretto (Vin Diesel) and O´Conner (Paul Walker) were retired after their latest heist in Rio, then you were wrong because Detective Hobbs (Dwayne ¨The Rock¨ Johnson) has an interesting proposition for them. He is pursuing some dangerous criminal mercenary drivers led by Shaw (Luke Evans) who have been creating chaos all over Europe. In order to stop them, Hobbs knows that he will need the help of Toretto. Hobbs discovers that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Toretto´s former love interest, is alive and working for Shaw, and therefore convinces Toretto to help him. The rest of his crew decides to come out of retirement as well and try to bring Letty back home with them. In exchange, Hobbs promises these men full pardon, and they accept without hesitation because they are tired of running and not being able to return home. Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris ¨Ludacris¨ Bridges), Han (Sung Kang), and Gisele (Gal Gadot) are all back in order to help Toretto and O´Conner to stop the ruthless criminals pursuing them from London to Spain, but Shaw and his men seem to be always a step ahead of them.

This sixth film in the franchise seems to tie some loose ends from the third and fourth installment in a very thrilling and entertaining way. The franchise has really picked up and it seems to have a lot of life left in it. It even ends with a cliffhanger, so it is certain that the seventh film will be coming out soon as well. Most everyone in the franchise is back again (only missing Tego Calderon and Don Omar) and the interaction between these characters is very entertaining. Ludacris and Tyrese pretty much steal all the laughs in the scenes they are together in, while Gadot and Kang bring in the romantic touch. Toretto and O´Conner have put aside their differences from the first films and their bond is pretty strong now as they are family. Despite some of the insane and absurd action scenes, this film stands above most other action films thanks to a strong performance from the cast. This film is really a lot of fun as long as you don’t think too hard of all the physical impossibilities of what they are achieving. The franchise just continues to grow faster and faster, and it works really well for a summer blockbuster movie. Fans won´t be disappointed, it is a very satisfying film.   

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My Review: Takers (4/10)

¨We`re takers, gents. That’s what we do for a living. We take.¨

There is a scene in Takers where a group of sophisticated criminals have just successfully finished robbing a bank and are walking away in style from an exploding helicopter. This scene can summarize what I thought about the movie: Very stylish and cool looking, but very poor in content, story, and acting. The cast seems entirely focused on trying to look cool and outshine one another, but none of them are actually worried about giving a decent and realistic portrayal of their characters. They may act tough and cool, but they’re all two dimensional. The script is bad, but I wouldn’t blame the acting entirely on that because the truth of the matter is that most these actors can´t act even if they were given an Oscar winning screenplay. Director John Lussenhop also collaborated with the screenplay along with Peter Allen and Gabriel Casseus, and the truth of the matter is that there are several plot holes. There was however some interesting action sequences, like a foot chase around New York City involving Chris Brown and Matt Dillon which had some really cool stunt work. Some viewers might be hypnotized by the look and style of the film because the visuals are actually pretty decent, but I really couldn’t get around the poor plot and acting. Zoe Saldana is probably one of the best actresses in the film and she doesn´t even get hardly any screen time. Some of the other characters in the film seem to have served no purpose at all (Naomi for example).

John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), brothers Jesse (Michael Ealy) and Jack Attica (Chris Brown), and Gordon Cozier (Idris Elba) are part of a five man team of bank robbers who successfully completed their latest heist after a spectacular and calculated escape involving a News Station helicopter. They are sophisticated criminals who enjoy a life of luxury; they have big houses, drive Range Rovers, and wear stylish clothes. Their comfortable lives come to an end when a former member of the team, known as Ghost (Tip T.I. Harris) is released from jail that very day and shows up with a new plan for a heist involving two armored trucks and twenty million dollars. The problem is that they don’t have much time to plan for the job and they don’t know if they can really trust Ghost. Jack´s girlfriend, Lilly (Zoe Saldana), used to be Ghost`s former love interest so Jack really doesn’t want to accept the job, but there is a lot of money involved so they accept. The other problem the team has to deal with is that police officer Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) and his partner Eddie (Jay Hernandez) are closely behind their backs linking several pieces of evidence against them. Jack has to deal with some trouble of his own due to the fact that his obsession with his job has pushed him away from his daughter, and Eddie has been accused of stealing some evidence money. Sooner or later the paths of these criminals will cross with those of Officer Welles.

My main issue with this film was the acting. T.I. is a terrible actor. His performance as Ghost is just nauseating. Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen aren’t really known for their acting skills although they do have some charisma. In this film with everything that is going on they don’t have much screen time for us to sympathize with their characters. Idris Elba gives a decent performance, but his whole relationship with his drug addict sister is pointless if you ask me. I know that she is the reason why Welles becomes suspicious of Gordon, but they could have done without that entire story. Zoe Saldana`s character is also misused and actually pointless in this film. The one memorable moment for me was the scene where we get to see Chris Brown in action trying to escape from the police. The stunt work was great. The rest of the film is pretty much forgettable although I can’t deny being seduced by some of the camera work. The look of the film was great, but the content was just not there at all. I was actually disappointed with Takers, it could have been so much better because it did have some interesting moments, but the pieces just didn’t seem to fit together. I wouldn’t recommend this movie, there are other more interesting and smart heist thrillers out there.

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My Review: Fast Five (7/10)

¨I suggest you make peace with whatever demons you have left cause come tomorrow, I will find you.¨

The Fast and the Furious franchise is back with its fifth installment, Fast Five, and I must say this is probably the best one of the series. Almost all the characters from the previous films are back and director Justin Lin has managed to bring the franchise back to life. I thought Tokyo Drift would definitely bury the series without Vin Diesel or Paul Walker, but then they managed to bring all the main characters back, mix them together, and now it seems we will have plenty more fast cars coming our way. The screenplay was written by Chris Morgan, who also wrote the third and fourth ones, and the story works really well although that isn`t the reason why we go see these movies. There are probably better actors, better scripts, and more believable heist thrillers than this one, but we still go see these movies for the cars and the great action sequences. The situations these guys go through is unbelievable, we know that the way these characters drive they should all have died in the first Fast and Furious, but we know this is just a fun and entertaining franchise and we try to make peace with the screenplay as best we can because it is just fun to see these guys go at it. It`s fun to see them drive cars off a running train, or speed by busy streets without crashing into each other while at the same time avoiding all sorts of bullets and explosions. Fast Five might be the most unbelievable and improbable film of the franchise, but it is still the best one.

The film picks up right where the fourth one left us, Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are breaking Dominic (Vin Diesel) out of custody while he is being transported to jail. They successfully manage to free him, and all three of them become fugitives. They are forced to continually be on the run and end up in Rio de Janeiro with very little money left on them. In Rio they stay with Dom`s longtime friend from the first film, Vince (Matt Schulze), who is now living in the favelas with his girlfriend and baby boy Nico. Vince tells Brian he has a job for them and since they are short on cash they have to accept. Unfortunately something goes wrong in the job and the guys make a new enemy: Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), a corrupt businessman who owns the entire police force and gangsters in Rio. Now Dom and Brian have all the gangsters, the Brazilian police, and special Federal Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne ¨The Rock¨ Johnson) along with his elite team after them in beautiful Rio. Dom and Brian decide to pull off one last job in order to teach Hernan a lesson, but in order to do so they will need to assemble an elite team. That is where the rest of the crew from previous films come in. First we have Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) from the first sequel, then there`s Han Lue (Sung Jang) from the Tokyo Drift film, and finally Gisele (Gal Gadot), Tego (Tego Calderon), and Rico Santos (Don Omar) are back from the latest installment. Together they hope to pull off one of the biggest heists of their lives worth 100 million dollars, but being able to pull it off doesn`t seem that easy.  

Fast Five delivers what it promises and even more. There are a lot of action sequences and they are shot extremely well. The cars move really fast, but that isn`t all Fast Five has going for it. The addition of The Rock to the story sets up an interesting fight scene between him and Dominic. The Rock helped boost the series even more and brought something fresh to the franchise. There is also the plus that the film took place in Rio de Janeiro and the scenery there is just so beautiful. There is a great chase scene that takes place over the roofs of the favelas, reminiscent of the Bourne Ultimatum scene in Morocco. Yes, the story is improbable, but we still are allowed to have fun with it. I didn`t get into the movie that much until the second half of the film, but let me say that the second part really delivers. This movie also has the best ending and it really leaves you expecting the sixth part, which I really didn’t feel that excited about in the other films. Fans of the franchise will surely be satisfied and Fast Five might even add a few new converts along the way because it is the best one so far. The soundtrack is also great and Don Omar really is hilarious in this movie. He delivered most of the funny scenes in the film. Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson also did their part in sharing the workload. It was just good seeing all these characters together and the cameo in the ending is just the cherry on the pie. I was surprisingly entertained with Fast Five.

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