If you believe that too much of a “good thing” is a “great thing,” have I got a movie for you. Although it’s released in April, this is a fitting introduction for a “summer of excess.” Introducing…the most excessive car chases, the most excessive destruction of property, the most excessive homage to an actor who died too soon. It’s all in here, in a movie where just when you think it can’t get wilder, it hits second gear and pops the clutch and proves you wrong. There is slick photography, whipsaw cutting, gorgeous backgrounds, outlandish moments – and two plots, just in case the first one doesn’t provide enough glue to hold everything together. Of course, neither storyline is really important; this is not a movie to see for the plot. This is a movie to see for close-ups of hands on the shift knob and feet on the accelerator and loud noises from squealing tires; it’s grown men – and women — settling deaths and other grudges behind the wheel of automobiles, sometimes while downloading programs from a computer.
It’s cars leaping among towers of the world’s tallest high rises…and falling out of an airplane and all landing on the same winding road below. It’s chases and races around hairpin curves on mountain ledges and crowded city streets – with people leaping from car to car — and walking away from certain death. This is crazy stuff, fully implausible, ridiculous, frenetic, over the top, incessantly unbelievable popcorn munching fun. Like several of its stars, it feels like entertainment on steroids. This isn’t a movie to think deeply about, or even analyze. Everyone is as good – or as bad — as they need to be and if you don’t believe this is intended to be a tribute to the late Paul Walker, please explain the reason for the whole long, miscellaneous, unnecessary ending sequence. But, still, “Furious 7” is a worthy addition to this franchise – if only because it’s more furious and frantic than anything that’s gone before.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 