Director: James Wan
Stars: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Tony Jaa, Djimon Hounsou
Deckard Shaw (Statham) seeks revenge against Dominic Toretto and his family after what they did to his brother. Dom et al team up with the government to try and rescue a kidnapped hacker, who designed some software that can help them track down Shaw.
So this review is pretty easy. If you like the Fast & Furious movies then you’ll like this one. It’s awesomely outrageous, logic goes out of the window, so if you like cars parachuting out of planes, The Rock breaking out of a cast by tensing his muscles, and cars driving through skyscrapers then this is a movie for you. There’s a pretty clear dividing line.
I didn’t actually like the first movie in the series but I caught up with them all last year and I enjoyed how they turned into heist movies with some fun one-liners, crazy action, and a little bit of heart. This is given extra emotional weight since it’s Paul Walker’s final film, and the whole theme of the film is about moving on and how some things are more important than chasing bullets. I’m not sure at what point into filming he died and how much of the film they had to change, but the last couple of scenes fit the film thematically as well as providing a fitting tribute to Paul Walker and the role he played in the film.
As for the film itself, it mixes a heist with globetrotting adventures . Statham is a good, menacing villain and adds a good antagonist that can match the intensity of Vin Diesel and the others. The other antagonists…well, Hounsou was wasted I think. I’m a big fan of the Ong-Bak films (the first two) so I was excited to see Tony Jaa’s return to acting and I know I shouldn’t have expected him to have a bigger part, and he probably got a decent amount of time, but I still wanted more! He had a few good scenes that made use of his talents, and I look forward to seeing more of him in bigger films.
Other than that it’s loud, it’s ridiculous, and I enjoyed it a lot. If they don’t make anymore movies in the series this is a fitting end.
