Given the tragic death of Paul Walker in late 2013, ironically in a car crash, the production of Fast & Furious 7 was a highly troubled and personal one which, for a time, was completely in doubt as to whether it would ever see the light of day. A good proportion of the film had been shot and director James Wan & his crew were forced to shut down, rethink, reflect and re-tool before they completed production and figure out a fitting way to send off Walker's Brian O'Connor, arguably the star of the franchise opposite Vin Diesel's Dominic Toretto. The Furious franchise has now reached a remarkable crescendo - transmuting it's cheesy exploitation roots and steadily growing bigger, bolder and despite being as stupid as a barrel of blind fish, genuinely better as each successive film has progressed, and Wan--replacing Justin Lin--manages to both deliver a film that sends Walker's character off in a fitting, respectful manner, while being easily the craziest blockbuster for quite some time. Imagine Mission Impossible at its biggest, throw in some steroids, and then you have Furious 7.

Many would accuse the Furious franchise of being dumb, and to a degree they'd be absolutely right, but what Chris Morgan on screenplay duties, alongside Wan and the crew, are not is unaware just how daft all of this is; the franchise has now become self aware in many places, typified really by Tyrese Gibson's comic foil Roman Pierce who frequently voices how they've gone from a plane to a tank to now flying cars and they must all be crazy - he's the voice of the audience, he's us, looking in at the lunacy of a plot that's so brash, so bonkers, so utterly removed from reality, it's very hard not to like. The last two Furious films--this and Six--really have felt like the kind of action films Hollywood used to make in the 80's & 90's with stars like Arnie - gloriously aware of the carnage they're creating, tongue firmly in cheek, placing modern day burly action superheroes to perform death defying stunts. Seriously, the moment Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson--as hard man Agent Hobbs--literally breaks off his own arm plaster cast and declares "daddy's got to go to work", the whole audience cheered. It's buoyed with a confidence that increasingly impresses, if you're prepared to look beyond the fact from a narrative or character point of view, it's a load of old tosh.

Morgan does use this as the chance to get the strange narrative of the Furious franchise back on track actually, with this taking place partially parallel to Tokyo Drift, intersecting with it (allowing for a cameo from Lucas Black, looking remarkably no older than almost ten years ago) and then pushing ahead finally out of its prequel tangle. Arguably, and ironically for a film with no depth, there's far too much plot here - you've got Jason Statham as villain Deckard Shaw, utterly badass and almost silent as a super rogue British black ops agent, hunting Diesel & the crew; there's lovely Michelle Rodriguez's Letty struggling to regain her lost memory thanks to films previous, and then Morgan throws in another chunky plot as Kurt Russell's sly government agent (he's having loads of fun incidentally) assigns the crew to steal a McGuffin that Dijmon Hounsou's African terrorist is chasing ridiculously sexy for a hacker Nathalie Emmanuel to recover, which they can use to find Statham & take him out... even though he literally turns up where they are with a gun at every opportunity. Best not to worry about the plot & just enjoy the cast smouldering, the gorgeous Middle Eastern locations and Wan blowing up everything in sight - massive car chases, The Rock vs Statham, flying cars between buildings, Diesel vs Statham, missile drones destroying Los Angeles. Genuinely, the carnage on screen is insane but Wan cuts it fast and indeed furious, sparing no expense and having fun in the bargain - when the action is pumping, it's truly thrilling stuff.

Sentimentality creeps in, of course, especially when the cast are called upon to 'act', but those moments are mercifully few & far between because Fast & Furious 7 knows exactly what it's doing, who its target audience is, and what they want - sexy people, dry wit, car chases, lots of explosions and action legends kicking the crap out of each other. It's all there and James Wan presents it extremely well, evoking action blockbusters of old while Brian Tyler provides an enjoyably bombastic score. The franchise has a running theme of a very dysfunctional family and in the final moments, they all talk far more about Paul Walker than they do Brian O'Connor - in many respects, it's closure for them on grieving for a friend, a brother, and for once action nonsense can be afforded a mawkish final few moments. The epitaph says merely 'For Paul'. You sense he would have been proud of his final movie.

Paul Walker
1973-2013
RIP