The road to self parody

Directed by James Wan.  Written by Chris Morgan
Vin Diesel      Dom
Paul Walker    Brian
Jordan Brewster  Mia
Ludicris   Tej
Tyrese Gibson   Roman
Jason Statham   Deckard Shaw
 
  This review might sound like I had a horrible time at Furious 7 and that's not the case.  Still, I want this franchise to quit before it morphs further into a full blown parody of itself.  The problem with Furious 7 starts with new director James Wan (Saw.)  To say that the previous director of the Furious franchise, Justin Lin, is solely missed would be quite an understatement.  Justin Lin had a certain creative symmetry with this franchise.  Lin knew when to up the ante on the mayhem and the action but he also didn't turn the volume up so high as to relegate his actors to mere set pieces.  In Furious 7 it seems like Wan turns up the volume high so on the stunts that all of the actors become thinly referenced footnotes.  This is more than evident with the Deckard Shaw character (Jason Statham.)  All of we know of Shaw is that he's an angry bad ass from England with a black ops background.  And oh yeah, he likes to blow stuff up but good.  The beauty of the previous films is that the villains have always been drawn relatively well.  Think Wings Hauser in 2 Fast 2 Furious.  The Shaw character disappears for a good portion of the film and his main purpose is to set up the next round of demolition derby with Torretto (Diesel.)  Let me go back to director James Wan for a second.  The cardinal sin he makes by pumping up the volume is that he draws attention to how inane this film is.  If a franchise like F and F walks a tightrope within the bounds of its own implausibility, it's not a good thing for the director to constantly remind us of said implausibility.  There is a moment when Terreto and Shaw go mano a mano in their souped up hot rods and Wan just can't help himself; over done close ups and shots of the car preparing for war and some ridiculously insulting rock and roll ditty that made me think of Last Action hero.
 
  Plot:  Back from a successful mission in London and with their records cleared, Dom (Vin Diesel) and his crew try to settle into a less action oriented future.  But all that changes when the brother of the man that Dom and his crew killed in London swears vengeance on Dom and everyone he knows.  The baddie is Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham.)  Deckard is what they call a ghost, an impossibly hard to track former black op with a penchant for anonymity and pure carnage.  During his quest to take Shaw out, Dom finds an unlikely ally in a well connected CIA spook (Kurt Russell.)  The spook offers Dom a deal.  If Dom and his crew retrieve a valuable tracking device called the gods eyes, the spook will help Dom track down Shaw.  I'll stop there, you can decipher the rest of the plot on your own.
 
  If you want anymore proof that the Furious franchise should quit while it's ahead, look no further than the final act.  If Wan wanted to redeem himself, he could've trimmed at least 15 minutes off of the last act.  For a film franchise that seems to be in the mood to top itself, the final act seems to stick to the tried and true action film formula.  That is to say, the bad guys miss ... ALOT.... and there's a member of the crew that always seems to arrive when one of his compadre's needs him most.  The F and F franchise seems to have designated Roman (Tyrese Gibson) as the designated savee when all seems to be lost.  There's really no rhyme or reason to the last act except for James Wan paying tribute to a virtual apocalypse as Dom's gang manages to destroy most of LA while trying to keep the other bad guy (Djimon Hounse) from gaining control of the gods eye.   Somehow, a man who got a hold of a very powerful tracking device can't seem to shoot straight when he has a helicopter loaded with military grade weaponry at his disposal.  What's even more ridiculous about the last act is the fact that Shaw, the bad ass assassin, ends up being felled by..... the sidewalk.  Yes, you heard that right.

   I thought about giving Furious 7 a reluctant three star recommendation but I can't.  I had a good time at Furious 7 but I couldn't help feeling that this film is the beginning of the end of a franchise that is heading for that cliff known as as self parody.  Eight and nine are rumored to be in the works and my hope that is either Rob Cohen or Justin Lin are recruited to restore order in the directors chair.  Either director James Wan was over whelmed by the huge canvas of a multi million dollar action fueled franchise or he just put Furious 7 on auto pilot because he chose the path of....."the audience is to dumb to get it."

  One final thought.  While the Paul Walker tribute at the end of the film was stirring, I couldn't help but wonder if it was appropriate.   One reviewer said that the beauty of the Walker tribute was that the film was dealing with Walker's death head on.  I have to disagree.  The tribute feels like some thing written for an actor who is simply stepping away from the franchise to do something else.  As we all know, Paul Walker is no longer with us.  Oh well, maybe it would've been better if Furious 7 had been scrapped all together.  Or at least, re imagined with a director who has a bit more respect for the IQ of the audience.   Or better yet, a healthy respect for everything that made the F and F franchise the exception to the rule in an era of big dumb and loud action films.  Welcomes to the status quo James Wan.