Furious 7: Movie Review

The review below is a mini-review which was part of my 2015 SXSW recap from a few weeks back.  You can read the full recap here.

I don’t check twitter as much as I should when I am bouncing from movie to movie at a festival like SXSW, thankfully I am very good at eavesdropping on other peoples conversations while standing in the film line. That is how I heard about the last minute surprise midnight screening of “Furious 7”. Knowing that I was going to miss the promo screening in Miami due to a conflicting event, I was super excited to have the chance to actually see it early.

“Furious 7” managed to really impress me. I know everyone had a daunting task to finish the film after the loss of Paul Walker. I was amazed at how they were able to put together a seamless story with one of the main actors passing away in the midst of filming. James Wan takes over directing duties and his lack of experience in action does show, especially in the hand to hand combat scenes. However, there are enough huge action set pieces that impress. This was the world premiere and the audience was asked not to talk about how Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner exits the series but I will say that I felt they handled it beautifully. I would say “Furious 7” is my 3rd favorite in the series, just behind “Fast Five” and “Fast & Furious 6”. It is a fun ride and I can’t wait to see how things continue in the inevitable 8th film.