Movie Review: Furious 7

James Wan (The Conjuring) takes the wheel for the latest in the Fast & Furious series, Furious 7.

Brian, Dom, Letty, and the rest of the crew are back.  After taking care of Owen Shaw in Fast & Furious 6, the crew is trying to settle down and keep it low key for a while.  Well, little did anyone know, Owen had an older brother who is quite protective of him and wants revenge.  Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham, The Transporter) is furious (see what I did there) about what happened to his little brother and decides to take out revenge by trying to kill off our beloved band of misfits one by one.  This revenge plot seems to be where the film is leading, until we take a sharp left turn into crazy town.  Deckard is ex-military and has pretty much become a ghost, so the crew doesn't know where he is or when he'll strike.  They're pretty defenseless.  Enter another ghost, who's actually currently in the military.  Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell, The Thing), is a government agent who is trying to rescue a kidnapped hacker named Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel).  She's created a program called God's Eye which can hack into any and all electronic devices in the world with a camera or microphone.  Perfect for locating the ever elusive Deckard.  Because for some reason the military is not capable of doing this themselves (?), Mr. Nobody seeks out the aid of the F& F crew to help retrieve Ramsey and her program.  In return, he will let them use the God's Eye to find Deckard.  This leads to traveling the world, dropping cars from planes, crashing through the air between skyscrapers, and finally an all out war between the crew, the kidnapper (Djimon Hounsou, Guardians of the Galaxy), and Deckard that pretty much levels half of LA.

If you've seen the rest of the Fast & Furious series, I'm going to guess you've already decided whether you're going to see this or not regardless of this review.  If you haven't seen the rest of the series, I recommend it for some good adrenaline pumping fun.  There's a couple misfires in there, but for the most part it's a good time that just progressively gets better.  When the series started, it could get a little ridiculous, but still managed to stay low key.  By the time six rolled around, they were driving a tank down the interstate and holding a cargo plane down with a group of sports cars.  If you're more inclined towards the craziness of the last two films, then this one will not disappoint.  It takes all the crazy from 5 and 6 and throws in a couple kitchen sinks.

Furious 7 almost goes too far with the insanity.....almost.  It ends up giving just the right amount.  Does most of it seem completely implausible? Hell yes.  Do you enjoy every last second of the action anyway?  Hell yes.  The God's Eye storyline is a bit much, but you just have to accept it because it is the catalyst for all the crazy stunts they do with the cars.  This is James Wan's first crack at this series (and only his second non-horror feature), and I think he does a fine job with it.  There are a few lengthy fight scenes because Jason Statham and Ronda Rousey are in it.  They all seemed fairly well filmed and choreographed.  Also, tension is a big part of both action and horror, but in different ways.  Wan has now proven he can do both.  Most of the stunts are utterly ridiculous, but Wan does so well with developing tension that I found myself forgetting that and sitting on the edge my seat wondering if they were gonna make it.  This was the longest movie in the franchise and yet there were very few gaps in the action, so it felt like the quickest.

The actors in this film are a big part of what makes it work as well.  There is definitely some talent in there, but I wouldn't go out and say they are all great actors.  What they do have though is genuine chemistry.  Most of them have been doing this since the first couple of films, and it shows.  Even when the dialogue is hokey, they all seem to genuinely be having a good time just hanging out with each other, and that makes it work.  As for the newcomers, I didn't think Ramsey brought much to the table.  She felt like a third wheel since she was a hacker and they already have Tej for that role.  Jason Statham was a lot of fun as a kick-ass bad guy.  The best newcomer would be Mr. Nobody though.  He and Dom played off of each other well.  I'd really like to see him return in any future installments (which you know there will be), since, sadly, Paul Walker is no longer with us.  As for Walker, he was never bad, but he was also never the greatest actor in the world.  What he did have though, was charisma and just a naturally likeable personality that came through in his performances.  He'll be missed, and I think he left us on a high note with his performance in this film.  Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that they also give him a touching send-off at the end of the film that just felt perfect.

The story and the stunts are both absurd, but you just can't help enjoying yourself at this movie.  Between this and Kingsman: The Secret Service, the popcorn-poppin' action flicks have been a whole lot of fun so far this year.  I'm ready for the summer blockbusters.

Rating: ********-- (8 out of 10) [matinee]

Memorable Quote:

Dom: This time it ain't just about being fast.

Movie Review: Hercules

Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) helps close out the July book with the story of Hercules.


Dwayne Johnson (Pain & Gain), with his yak testicle hair beard (that's what he claims), plays the title role of Hercules, the demi-god son of Zeus and a mortal woman.  To be free of Zeus' jealous wife Hera's attempts to kill him he must go through the 12 labors.  These are tasks set before him that only a demi-god such as himself can perform.  This is the story you expect, going into a film about Hercules.  This is the story you get for the first 10 minutes of this film.  Turns out he's gone through his 12 labors and now is a mercenary for hire that goes around with his rag-tag group of merry men (and one Amazonian woman) doing tasks in exchange for gold.  He is hired by Lord Cotys (John Hurt, Snowpiercer) to train the men of Thrace to defend his kingdom from the evil warlord Rhesus.


This all seems utterly ridiculous, and it is, but it turns out to be a bit of fun.  The story, although told poorly in this film, is quite interesting at the base of it.  You find out that Hercules may not be a demi-god after all.  His nephew travels with him on his adventures and tells the tales of his previous acts.  Each time the tales get taller and taller until you finally have a legend born of a man who was born the son of Zeus.  I think this is an interesting commentary on how myths and legends are created out of word of mouth.  Even though this film is filled with flaws, that was probably the one thing that bothered me most.  It is heavily implied that Hercules is only a mortal man, but you see him perform some pretty superhuman feats throughout.  This and the other flaws didn't even bother me that much though, because the movie was just plain fun.


Before I get to the part where I had fun, I need to point out some other flaws.  This is because I want to make sure you're completely aware that this is not necessarily a "good" movie.  To start with, it's just poorly written.  As I said, the base story is a nice twist, but after it is revealed it becomes a little predictable.  It is also filled with the tropes and clichés of action adventure films like this.  The script is not great either.  There are a lot of lines that just don't work, and some dialogue that seemed to go a little too modern day.  All that being said, if those are the kinds of things that you just cannot get past in a movie, then you may just want to walk away.  If you think that you might be able to move past this if some other proper ingredients were thrown in, then I'll get to what I liked about the film.


The actors.  Not necessarily the acting, but the actors.  It was like they all knew what kind of hokey movie they were in and decided to just go with it.  It just seemed like they were having fun playing these characters, and that flowed through to me having fun watching them.  Dwayne Johnson, in his usual fashion, just oozed with his natural charisma and really hammed it up for the camera.  Some of Hercules cohorts were even more fun to watch.  Rufus Sewell (A Knight's Tale), plays kind of his right hand man, Autolycus, who is handy with daggers.  He gets some good, well-timed quips in with his dialogue.  Ingrid Bolso Berdal (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) plays a fierce no-nonsense Amazonian.  The highlight had to be Ian McShane (Cuban Fury) though.  He played a "seer", Amphiaraus, who was burdened with the ability to receive visions from the gods, including when someone's time was up.  You just didn't know what was going to come out of his mouth.  There is a fun recurring theme about visions of his own death that pays off with what was the biggest laugh at my screening.  There are a few chuckles in this film, but it does try to take itself seriously throughout most.  It's just that it's so self-aware, that it allows you to laugh with it in some scenes instead of at it.


Where it gets serious is the violence.  This is another part of the film that excelled for me.  There were a couple of big battles that, in such a shoddy movie, were themselves well shot and fun to watch.  One of my earlier complaints about the film was the fact that Hercules was still kind of superhuman even though implied that he was merely mortal.  Most of his super-heroic feats were on the battlefield, though, and just gave a little extra flair to the fighting going on.


Again, I must say that this is not really a "good" movie in the technical sense, but it is entertaining.  If you want an Oscar contender, you're in the wrong place.  If you're looking for a light, fun summer popcorn flick on weekend afternoon, then there are far worse movies you could go with.  And in the land of 2 1/2 to 3 hour movies that have recently been flooding the theaters, this movie has the added bonus of breezing by with a mere 98 minute run time.


Rating: ******---- (6 out of 10)


Memorable Quote:
Amphiaraus: Do you mind? I was having a moment.