Furious Seven

The Fast and Furious franchise hits its nadir with this overlong and aggressively over-the-top entry, in which Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto and his cohorts are forced to battle the evil and seemingly unstoppable Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Filmmaker James Wan has infused Furious Seven with an excessively (and perpetually) slick feel that proves a distraction right from the word go, with the movie’s opening-credits sequence, for example, losing any impact it might have had due to Wan’s aggressively stylish sensibilities. The movie’s ludicrously overlong running time (137 minutes!) ensures that even those sequences that initially manage to entertain outstay their welcome, while Wan’s obvious discomfort with hand-to-hand fights renders each and every such moment completely unintelligible (ie so, so much shakycam). And although the various actors try their darndest to inject the proceedings with something resembling vitality – Kurt Russell, cast as a shady government man, is a clear standout – Furious Seven‘s relentless emphasis on mayhem ensures that it remains uninvolving (and incoherent) virtually from start to finish. The intolerable, Transformers-like climax stands as the final nail in the coffin that is Furious Seven, with the movie’s sole saving grace an admittedly touching sendoff for Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner (ie the film could’ve used more humanity and subtlety in that vein, to be sure).

*1/2 out of ****