Fast and Furious 7
Over the weekend I dragged my sister to see Fast and Furious 7 with me (to answer the questions everyone has asked: no, I don’t care about cars, but I love action movies, all the films from this series I have seen are super fun, and I haven’t seen Jason Statham on the big screen for a while).
IT WAS EXCELLENT. And ridiculous. But excellent. Highly recommended.
VERY SPOILERY Thoughts, in no particular order:
Trailers: Spy, Jurassic World (planning a trip to Leicester when this comes out so Bex and I can see it), can’t remember the rest but presume there were explosions and guns and stuff.
Statham yesssss. And being the bad guy with a vague special forces past, which was interesting. Usually he’s the good guy with a vague special forces past.
Not enough male shirtlessness, damn it. So many hot men and they mostly all kept their shirts on, siiiiigh. Lots of women in bikinis though (although two of the characters argue over who has dibs on the new girl this never actually went anywhere and neither of them got the girl so it just looked like daft posturing and wasn’t actually too annoying).
LOT of buildings got destroyed.
Michelle Rodriguez <3
Jordana Brewster now looks like Courtney Cox, which is odd.
That girl who was in Hollyoaks and then Game of Thrones (Nathalie Emmanuel) was in it, which was excellent.
Apparently referencing the fact that someone was in Hollyoaks every time I see them in something else - never mind what else they have been in - is a habit I share with my sister.
THEY DROP CARS OUT OF PLANES. That bit was just sliiiiiightly tense, even knowing everyone had plot immunity.
Actually Bex and I watched a surprising amount of this film with our hands over our eyes. Some of it was fucking terrifying.
If people are going to build ridiculous buildings, I think it is only fair and right for them to get smashed up in action movies (this time: Abu Dhabi, and yes Vin Diesel and Paul Walker smashed a really amazing car through THREE towers and it was great).
Why do people in movies stand riiiiiiight on the edge of a smashed window when it is really high up? Whhhhhy? I’m not actually scared of heights at all but gaaaaah.
Oh, apparently F&F6 was (partially?) set in London???? Need to get on that asap. Does the Shard get smashed up?
The series is basically a live action cartoon because in NO WAY would any of these people have even been able to move after even ONE of their fight scenes.
At one point Dwayne Johnson removed a cast by bending his arm and breaking it. Because he’s that hard. Amazing.
I don’t care about cars but my goodness there were some nice ones in this film. Not that I can tell you what any of them were.
As per usual for action films, the good guys weren’t shown causing any collateral damage but my goodness the body count would have been high (though I think a couple of set piece fights were intentionally done in empty buildings, so well done them)
This film is full of men fighting each other, hurrah! And properly knocking each other around way past any realistic possibility, but who cares? It was ace.
Oh and Michelle Rodriguez had an amazing fight scene with Ronda Rousey (who is a UFC fighter) who plays the head of a billionaire’s armed guard. And actually the other guards too (she beat them all, obviously, because Michelle Rodriguez).
Basically I really like fight scenes.
Jason Statham’s character name was Deckard Shaw, which I thought must be a Blade Runner homage because I am pretty sure that is no sort of British ex-special forces person’s name at all (and as my sister pointed out, imagine the teasing)
Kurt Russell was also in this film! Odd casting, but nvm, always good to see Kurt Russell.
This film introduced my sister to Tony Jaa (still amazing, btw, how long ago was Ong-Bak?) and now I need to find out if I do have Ong-Bak on DVD so I can lend it to her.
The plot made NO SENSE, and if it wasn’t working on Hustle/Ocean’s Twelve Rules (e.g. that the main characters always come out on top) then Jason Statham would have beaten them, because the macguffin of the plot is basically The Machine from Person of Interest, able to track people through cameras and phones etc. (right down to the graphics, holy crap) and there seriously needed to be a line explaining that Statham had a hacked version or something because somehow even when he didn’t have it he was able to turn up exactly where and when the heroes were. Seriously, just one line and then it would have sort-of made sense! (ETA: also Caviezel should have shown up for a bit, this film suits his acting style hahaha)
There was barely any point to Jordana Brewster being in this film.
At one point Vin Diesel holds up a car so Paul Walker can get underneath it to find the macguffin. Amazing.
I am a bit confused by the timeline but even within the film it was a bit fuzzy so never mind. Perhaps it will make more sense when I’ve seen them all.
Somehow - SOMEHOW - Jason Statham got a car park dropped on him and survived and was somehow able to walk around afterwards and everything. Hahaha alright. But still, obvious sequel potential. Bring it on.
They did a good job on not letting Paul Walker’s death take over the film until the very end, and while the ending was a bit sentimental it did make sense for the tone of the series and it was very nicely done.