Let’s begin with reflecting on a franchise which may have lost its way a few years ago, but most of us can agree that Fast Five (2011) was an enormous amount of fun and the most entertaining entry of the series thus far. It had a credits scene where Agent Hobbs (Johnson) was handed a photo of Letty (Rodriguez) that was taken last week.
This was a nice twist and set up, as she supposedly died in Fast and Furious (2009). But then again Han (Sung Kang) turned up alive and well at the beginning of Fast and Furious (2009) when he died in The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). Confused? Well the chronology goes: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 3 and there is an extra scene after this one recapping his demise in Tokyo, which I don’t want to spoil, but this a generally exciting setup for Fast & Furious 7 (2014).
The plot is basic and re-treads previous beats. Having pulled off their last heist in Rio, our familiar cast of bandits have settled down. Kinda. Brian (Walker) is now a father and at the command of the team’s leader, Dom (Diesel), their old life of crime is done. Meanwhile Hobbs has been tracking down an international mastermind (Luke Evans) who commands an organization of mercenary drivers, who have pulled off incredible heists across 12 countries. Hobbs enlists Dom by showing him the photo of his former lover, the supposedly recently deceased Letty (Rodriguez). With that impetus, Dom organises his crew to take them down in exchange for full pardons, with most of the action then moving to London.
That’s the plot out of the way and I would advise you to turn your brain off and, to excuse the pun, just enjoy the ride. These films are the modern day A Team / Oceans 11 / James Bond action heist films that will never win any awards, but they continue to draw audiences in because they are just fun. You have to try to not worry too much about plot holes and things that are just physically impossible, instead just grab some snacks and prepare to be entertained for a couple of hours.
I didn’t see any trailers for this film so I was pleasantly surprised to find that they start their quest in London. I also like the fact that the ensemble fills in pretty much every character demographic for this type of film (the charmer, the cool guy, the rogue, the muscle, the brain, the wise man, femme fatale ect) and they are all utilised effectively and entertainingly to plan their missions and progress the story. However the family’ and loyalty’ themes of all these films are used once again to predictable effect and I’m glad that the main villain, Shaw (Evans), points this out to be a weakness.
As we are in London it should be no surprise that yet again we have another stereotypical British villain who is smart, charming, well dressed and, unfortunately, a little two-dimensional. Shaw leads a crew featuring Letty and a band of virtually identical characters to Dom’s team, which would bother me if it wasn’t hilariously pointed out by Roman (Tyrese Gibson) as their crews evil twins.
As they go to work the events are pretty predictable and most of Dom’s crew double up to create their own little dynamic duos. However the chemistry is still there and it is good to catch up on what they have been doing with plenty of comic relief and enjoyable development.
As you’d expect there are plenty of car chases and they up the ante and silliness. An F1 style getaway car chase in London is great, although it reminded me of The Dark Knight (2008), while the chase in Spain which features every Grand Theft Auto’s player’s favourite toy: a tank! I do feel that this film ignored its high body count due to the amount of mangled cars, but it’s not that kind of film and car crashes and explosions just look cool!
I didn’t notice any major swearing or gore compared to previous films, which really wasn’t a problem, but the action did get a bit ridiculous at times while a flying head-butt had me in stiches. And yes, they do keep changing up an infinite number of gears like the other films, which is unbelievable to anyone who owns a car.
Unfortunately I could not suspend my disbelief at the ending, as it must have taken place on the world’s longest runway. This leads me to the film’s problems. The constant: go to exotic location plan heist be one step ahead of the police action scene go to another location’ pacing become a bit distracting, especially with so many similar characters. Also at one point Brian goes to LA to gain some information, and only tells Dom once they’re reacquainted in London. If it was that important then why didn’t he just phone?
My biggest issue with this film was the lack of scenes and chemistry between Dom and Hobbs. Granted, Hobbs hunting down Dom was what made the last film great and I thoroughly enjoyed two bald steroided up men beating the crap out of each other and generally laying the smack down. As they were now working with each other, this film lost that edge and made a few things apparent, like the height difference between them changing between shots and the fact they can never stand face to face: rather slightly side by side on an incline. Just watch their farewell and you’ll know what I mean.
I should add that the villain’s overall plan had no sense of threat, dread or urgency towards what Dom’s team had to do and felt secondary to our main characters antics. It’s not too much of a problem though as you expect the villain’s plan to be far-fetched and illogical in a film like this.
Also this sequel feels more like a prequel or part one for things to come. Which it is. As such it doesn’t feel as rounded or complete as the previous entries, but time will soon tell if it neatly fits with its sequel, where the new villain will be a sound match for Dom and his crew.
Technically speaking, the editing was fine and surround sound was fantastic, although some of the songs used are just awful and the bass on my system sometimes drowned out the dialogue. This is the fourth entry directed by Justin Lin and I’m glad he has returned to the if it aint broke’ formula. The stunts were great and there is a load of unnecessary carnage, but I wonder how much was filmed with real cars or CGI?
Unfortunately there were no features on this disk although the Blu Ray has over 50 minutes of bonus material including deleted scenes, commentary and various behind the scenes featurettes.
However enjoyable this series is it always leaves me with one nagging question. Where do all these glamorous car meet ups happen? The ones with the scantily clad women outnumbering men 10 to 1, the DJ’s, the lights and the ultra-cars with enough wax on them to blind anyone not wearing sunglasses! And was the race start girl Rita Ora?
Overall Verdict: It’s like going to the same club week after week. The thrills are predictable but you feel comfortable with the familiar faces and you like it so you come back and rightly enjoy it too. There’s more action and less cars, and most of the characters are two-dimensional, but it’s better than most of the prequels, just not as fun as 5. However roll on 7!
Reviewer: George Elcombe