Furious7, Blu-ray (2015)
Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Paul Walker, Michael Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Jason Statham, Kurt Russell
Director: James Wan
Studio: Universal 61129709 [9/15/15] (2 discs)
Video: 2.40:1 for 16:9 1080p color HD
Both Theatrical & Extended Edition
Audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1, DVS 2.0, French & Spanish DTS 5.1 digital, English/Spanish/French Dolby 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Extras: Deleted scenes, Flying Cars, Snatch and Grab, Tower Jumps, Inside the Fight, The Cars of Furious, Race Wars, “See You Again” music video, The Making of the Fast & Furious Supercharged Ride, Ultraviolet, Digital copy
Length: 2 hours, 20 min. (Ext.), 2 hours 18 min. (Theatrical)
Rating: ****
If you’re really into big and fast cars driven completely recklessly, this film is for you. Reviews online said it was better than any of the previous six in the series, which I never saw, so I gave it a try. Vin and his crew go out on their most emotional and gravity-defying adventure ever. The cgi is amazing, if entirely illogical. The epitome is the launching of a whole flotilla of cars that fall thru space for a long time before giant parachutes open and they take off down the road (or no road) without wasting a second. You may want to use the back control, slow speed and pause many places on this feature. The extended version probably has a couple minutes of extra violence that was cut from the theatrical version, so here you have both versions.
Jason Statham plays an undestroyable cold-blooded black-ops assassin with a score to settle with Diesel. Whenever he gets completely cornered, he lets off a little bomb and somehow escapes. Kurt Russell continues his long action movie career playing a role with little action but his usual skills. There is also a cute female hacker who has invented the “God’s Eye” software, which uses the cameras nearly everywhere to track anyone almost instantly. They claim they could have found Ben Laden in a few hours if they had had it then.
The crew does their group thing in several exotic locations, including the amazing Abu Dabai, but the final shoot-out/drive-out takes place on the streets of Los Angeles. Diesel get to do his low-key emotional dialog – a lot about the importance of family. And at least it’s not in a German accent. The bad guys are black and Asian, but half the good guys are black, so things are evened out, except that there are no black & white families.
It was a relief to get back into my little old Civic after all that.
—John Sunier
