I think it was pretty obvious I was going to go and see this film. I reviewed pretty much the rest of thr franchise over the years and liked all of them. I couldn’t not see the last film Paul Walker was in.
Like most of the fast and furious films you do have to slightly suspend your sense of reality to cope with all the crazy stunts, but in a film like this, which even makes a few jabs at its own brand of nuts, it’s not too hard to do.
The pacing of the film felt even more relentless than the previous ones with action every five seconds although not quite so much of the usual street car racing. I missed the epic race styl part of the film, although there’s a quick drag race between Letty and some random guy so it’s not completely missing. I guess the much more serious nature of the plot was not so conducive of some racing.
Although the film had me laughing at several points by the end I was crying. I think that’s probably something I expected though. The ending was very much a tribute to Paul and was very well done. I don’t think there was a woman with a dry eye in my showing and had it not been a public place I wouldn’t have been surprised if a few guys would have shed a tear or two either.
There was a lot of emotion throughout the film, despite all the action too. With all the backstory for Letty and Dom to sort as well as the families growing, the death of Han in Tokyo Drift (film 3) being at the start of this film and all of the other stuff thrown together, it was defintiely big on the emotion anyway. I don’t know if it was because they felt this film was extra important but it seemed like the acting in this film had stepped up a notch, as well.
I don’t know if they really did a good job of using Statham to his full potential but it was interesting seeing him as the bad guy, pitted against the fast crew. I think there’s going to be an 8th (Vin Diesel has hinted at it very strongly) and given the final bit with Statham in, I’m assuming we’ll be seeing more of him for that.
All in all, I still very much enjoyed the film, even if it wasn’t quite perfect, and was very glad to have some tissues to hand. I’ll be seeing any more these guys want to trot out.
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