Furious 7 (2015)

	Also Known As: Fast & Furious 7
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: James Wan (Saw, Death Sentence)
	Actors: Vin Diesel (Pitch Black, Riddick, xXx), Paul Walker (Pleasantville, Timeline, Into the Blue), Dwayne Johnson (Rampage, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle), Jordana Brewster, Jason Statham (The Mechanic)
	Country: USA, CN, J, CDN, UAE
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 21.01.2020, Blu-ray, 40" TV screen.
Synopsis: When they get threatened by the brother of previous enemy (Statham), Dom (Diesel) and O'Connor (Walker) assemble the team once more to go against him.
Review: I think to remember that 2015 is when I heard about the franchise again, and started to caress the idea of watching all of it. I remember seeing the trailer, and half of the movie on a distant screen in a bus with no sound before stopping and keeping the surprise for later. Now the time has come. After Justin Lin directed four movies of the franchise and brought it to its culmination (Furious 6 in 2013), James Wan was hired to go on, even though he is more known for his success in a more horrific and violent genre. And I find that he did pretty well, although not topping the previous one. As I learned from the Blu-ray extras (my god it's been an eternity since I watched some of those), each movie has to show new things in terms of human and car Action. In this movie we get a villain with a new kind of motivation and skill set (Statham), the team reaching a whole new level of adventures with even more important allies (Kurt Russell rules), and the stunts have never been seen before (cars don't fly!). James Wan also found new ways to show fist fights (rotating cameras, an awesome opening sequence etc...) and introduce a Thai legend to the franchise (Tony Jaa from Born to Fight and Ong-Bak). Dwayne Johnson is less present in his movie, my guess would be because he was committed to other projects, but when he appears it counts (ahah how he breaks his plaster by flexing his biceps!). The movie is a lot of fun to watch and many scenes, in particular the ones with cars appropriately, are awesome. The theme of Family is present as ever and brings some welcome emotion to this Action fest. I have two critics though, that sometimes took me out of the movie: firstly, in spite of all the fighting we don't see any blood on-screen (only bruises) to stupidly comply with the PG-13 rating. OK it is not The Expendable, but that's annoying. the extended version is only a little bit better (see that website). Secondly, the justifications for the team to go on this or that mission are light, very light, almost James-Bond light. In the defense of the writers, how do you justify for regular people to go Mission: Impossible, once you have used the killer argument from the previous movie? I knew that Actor Paul Walker died during the making of this movie or the next but was not sure which, and that the movie had to be partly edited without him, or with CGIs or his brothers as stand-in. I was pleasantly surprised to go though the whole movie without noticing anything shocking, but being very touched by the ending, a goodbye to the Actor and the character, after which there was no doubt it happened during that movie. I am pretty sure plenty of people complain about how bad it is done, and I guess I would notice defects if I was watching the movie again with that in mind, but for now I like this movie.
Rating: 6 /10