Let me start by saying that, with a running time of 140 minutes, Furious 7 is too long. Like, 30 minutes too long. Partly that’s because, after seven installments, the film simply has too much mythology to contend with. You have to give due time to the bromance between Dom (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker), which started it all. But you also have to give nods to Dom’s burgeoning bromance with cop Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), and his romance with the amnesiac Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). You have to show some of Brian’s family life with his wife (and Dom’s sister) Mia (Jordana Brewster). Then you need to make sure that the supporting cast—Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tek (Ludacris)—has their time to crack wise and shine. You might want to throw in some winking references to past films in the franchise, for die-hards. On top of all that, you need some semblance of new “plot” and the ridiculous, over-the-top action sequences the franchise has become famous for.
Come to think of it, it’s amazing the film isn’t five hours.
One easy way to shorten the film? Fewer action sequences. I realize this might be an unpopular opinion, but Furious 7 had two elaborate action set pieces—confidently directed by new-to-the-franchise James Wan— that had me positively squealing with delight. One involved jumping out of a plane (in cars) and hijacking a heavily armed truck on a canyon in Azerbaijan. The other involved crashing an exclusive penthouse party in Abu Dhabi. Both were extreme, hilarious, imaginatively bonkers. By the time they got to the third major action sequence—involving drones in downtown LA—I had checked out. There are only so many things-that-go-boom I can take. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
Here are the new elements: Jason Statham plays Deckard Shaw, a black ops, ex-special forces, all-around badass who wants to get revenge on Dom and his crew for nearly killing his brother (Luke Evans, from Fast & Furious 6). So Dom teams up with an American superspy who calls himself Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell, having fun), to free the creator of a global tracking device (Nathalie Emmanuel) who has been kidnapped by, uh, evil people who want to do evil things (headed up by Djimon Hounsou, for what it’s worth). Once Dom gets his hands on that tracking device, he’ll be able to catch up with Shaw.
Of course, there’s one other, sad element the film needed to contend with—and that’s the death of Paul Walker, who was killed in a car crash in 2013, right before the movie had finished shooting. And although I know some scenes were filmed after his death—using CGI and, reportedly, Paul’s lookalike brothers—the work is completely seamless. Better still, the film handles the more difficult, emotional aspect of his loss in a way that felt organic to the plot and genuinely made me tear up. Then, as they cut to the credits, the filmmakers kept things uncharacteristically minimal, with the simple words, “For Paul.”