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Henry Gale
04-02-2015, 03:26 AM
http://cdn.indiewire.com/dims4/INDIEWIRE/d8719c4/2147483647/thumbnail/680x478/quality/75/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fd1oi7t5trwfj 5d.cloudfront.net%2F92%2Fa2%2F 7cee6c6843b99b9539d05da85e7c%2 Ffurious-7.jpg

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2820852/) / Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furious_7)

Henry Gale
04-02-2015, 03:34 AM
It's.... *sniffle*.. everything I could've asked for...

(Except for some grievances that I'll just delay talking about for the time being to let the ridiculously beautiful and beautifully ridiculous moments stand out most in my mind.)

Whatever part of me that would like to say I am being somewhat ironic with my love for this and the excitement it left me with, is honestly undone by just how unabashedly and knowingly over-the-top the movie is, the fact that I got to see this screening on my birthday with one of my oldest and best friends who I remember watching the earliest of the franchise over a decade ago, laughing our asses off with this one just as much as we did back then, and that combination of things really make for a perfect night out at the movies.

But what an insane series this has become. Going to revel in re-watching all of them 'til the next, which if they don't start filming tomorrow is already way too far off in the future.

Watashi
04-03-2015, 08:32 AM
This series has turned into a Saturday Morning Cartoon, and what a glorious cartoon it is.

Henry Gale
04-05-2015, 06:48 PM
$143 million opening weekend.




Too low.

Ivan Drago
04-06-2015, 12:39 AM
This movie is everything I hoped it would be.

number8
04-06-2015, 02:33 AM
I have to admit I felt it got a bit too over the top, and that it had too much gunfight scenes. Still a lot of fun and I realized that I unabashedly love these characters (half of my party straight up cried at the end, I almost teared up myself), even though I had plenty of gripes with the way Wan shoots action scenes. He really wasted Tony Jaa.

Henry Gale
04-06-2015, 04:34 AM
I have to admit I felt it got a bit too over the top, and that it had too much gunfight scenes. Still a lot of fun and I realized that I unabashedly love these characters (half of my party straight up cried at the end, I almost teared up myself), even though I had plenty of gripes with the way Wan shoots action scenes. He really wasted Tony Jaa.

Yeah, I can't really disagree with any of that. But like Wats said, it really has become an impenetrably fun cartoon-physics machine with this late trilogy to let the issues I do have drag my enjoyment down very much at all, especially since 5, 6 and now 7 managed to figure out how to strengthen everything else about themselves in the meantime too.

Lin definitely had a stronger mind's eye with the camera with his installments, but Wan definitely has his own energy that you feel differently right off the bat -- for better or worse -- with the opening credits hospital scene. Maybe it was just the IMAX sound bulking up the intensity of the hits in the hand-to-hand scenes, but I thought he captured a good sense of the action in that visceral sense, regardless of how efficiently he may have framed, blocked and focused them at any given moment. The Rodriguez/Rousey fight has left the least impression of the bunch, and I agree Jaa could've been employed soooo much better (though his final showdown was definitely hindered by the passing of Walker and the eventual need for heavy stand-in usage), but I just think it's a common pity that the series doesn't know quite how to make the most of the abilities of performers like him or The Raid's Joe Taslim, whose role I remember similar disappointment in Furious 6.

Wan definitely has a looser grip on the reality of things, the CG seems more visible than usual, and his indulgences in the sillier cultural influenced "sick EDM party(!!) / slo-mo butt-shot / Turn Down For What!" aspects of things feels more amateurish than they should, almost as if the series had managed quietly grow up otherwise when I didn't quite paying attention for me to suddenly expect better. But Wan has never been particularly self-conscious or all that perfect a craftsman even at his best, which is a combination that allows for the insane rough edges of his ideas to stay intact and see their way to the final product both in his past work and here. The last thing I want to see is a film of his where I'm not questioning how serious he is with something he's putting on screen.

In terms of the emotional punch of the ending, did anyone else feel that it would've been exponentially more effective if they'd ended it with Brian (but basically just unabashedly Walker at that point, questionable-looking CG and all) pulling up to Dom and, asking if he really thought he'd get away without saying goodbye, and fading out right with them driving off? I feel like the only reason I didn't completely crack tear-wise was the Wiz Khalifa-scored montage that got in the way of that. Obviously the films and the cast and crew deserved to give a tribute of the stature they did, but it just felt like a little too much. (Not that this series has never really known any other mode.)

number8
04-06-2015, 02:33 PM
Nothing deflates me more than seeing an athlete's impressive feats be neutered by fancy camerawork. When Jaa is scaling over fences and construction material, and the camera goes into slo-mo and glides up and down with him, it just dulls his show of agility. Similarly when the camera rotates to its side to follow Jaa scaling a wall upside down.

D_Davis
04-06-2015, 03:35 PM
Is the the West's answer to the Young and Dangerous series?

DavidSeven
04-06-2015, 06:10 PM
I went into this prepared to give it all kinds of leeway, but this move is just too ridiculous at times. Like 8, I have a huge problem with Wan's action direction. At least a quarter of it must have been shot in close-up shaky cam. I know it's becoming in vogue to appreciate this series as a whole in the ironic hipster way people enjoy something like Torque, but, in my opinion, that is a disservice to the installments that are actually well-made. Fast Five is legitimately one of the best directed action movies ever. Furious 7 is nowhere near that class of movie.

You have Tony Jaa, the Rock, Statham and Rousey, and yet, you couldn't convince me that a single punch was thrown in a wide angle. To have that kind of physical talent and then shoot everything through indecipherable close-ups, rapid cuts and gimmick shots is unforgivable. What a waste.

In spite of Wan's poor touch for action, I did enjoy the movie quite a bit. At the same time, I have a feeling a lot of that has to do with six movies of character-work that pre-date Wan's involvement. I will, however, say that the film's finale did move me and that arc was really handled about as well as you could hope.

TGM
04-06-2015, 06:38 PM
Oh man, this series is out of control. This movie is completely fucking bonkers, lol. That was a very nice sendoff they did for Paul Walker at the end, though. Very respectfully handled.

number8
04-06-2015, 06:53 PM
Doing the marathon really made me appreciate how underrated Lin's slick directing is. I always remembered 4 being a weak entry, but I think at the time I was just not impressed by the story it was telling as a standalone movie. However, watching it as a series, and seeing how it sets up the mythology and character work for later films, I was able to look past the story gripes and really just appreciate the character interactions and action. I now believe that the GPS race in 4 where Dom and Brian compete to be Braga's driver is the best racing scene in the entire series. Just immaculately cut; frenetic but always very clear on where the cars are in relation to each other, even though it's a night time scene. I cannot say the same about the predator drone chase in this one, which was frustratingly hazy on the geography.

It was actually really sad... Several times during the car scenes in 7, I was thinking, "Wow, that was a really cool stunt, I wish I could see how Justin Lin would have shot that."

TGM
04-06-2015, 07:02 PM
Whatever part of me that would like to say I am being somewhat ironic with my love for this and the excitement it left me with, is honestly undone by just how unabashedly and knowingly over-the-top the movie is.

Yup, and I actually kinda loved how they even included a scene just to emphasize how zany things have gotten, when Paul Walker's character says that he's "going old school", then proceeds to drive underneath a truck, alluding to when THAT was as over-the-top as it got in the first entry. Shit, that's freaking tame now, lol!

Rowland
04-07-2015, 06:45 AM
This is amusing enough as a whole, but it's inferior to the last two Lin entries, and frankly, I expected better from Wan; it turns into a bit of a slog after the Etihad towers sequence, the home stretch comprised of poorly shot/edited action scenes and ghoulishly shot/edited scenes featuring "Paul Walker."

Furious 7 < Torque

number8
04-07-2015, 11:58 AM
Wait, can we really say that people are enjoying Torque in an ironic way if it's exactly what the filmmakers intended? Or are we just saying that satire as a whole is typically enjoyed by its audience ironically? That's actually an interesting question...

Skitch
04-07-2015, 12:13 PM
Wait, can we really say that people are enjoying Torque in an ironic way if it's exactly what the filmmakers intended? Or are we just saying that satire as a whole is typically enjoyed by its audience ironically? That's actually an interesting question...

Hmmmm...that is a great question. Whatever the answer is, nothing will ever stop me enjoying that joyous disaster.

number8
04-07-2015, 01:46 PM
75% of Furious 7's record breaking North American box office were non-white (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/furious-7-audience-75-percent-786452), which is a staggering anomaly.

49% were female (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-box-office-furious-7-20150405-story.html), which is pretty standard for big blockbusters these days (especially Marvel movies), but I think it also reflects how these movies' treatment of the female characters betray the straight-male-centric reputation created by the buttshot B-rolls. I remember liking how the gratuitous shot of Nathalie Emmanuel in a bikini that is used to sell the movie in the trailers is commented on in the movie itself.

Anecdotally speaking, more women showed up to my marathon party than men, even though I invited about an equal divide. Seven people came with me to see Furious 7, and five of them were women.

Morris Schæffer
04-08-2015, 05:39 AM
Wait, can we really say that people are enjoying Torque in an ironic way if it's exactly what the filmmakers intended? Or are we just saying that satire as a whole is typically enjoyed by its audience ironically? That's actually an interesting question...

Are you saying that if Michael Bay's next movie is called 'Horse Shit' and actually features copious amounts of the brown stuff detonated and shot in slow-mo, we should all be able to enjoy it?

number8
04-08-2015, 01:34 PM
Are you saying that if Michael Bay's next movie is called 'Horse Shit' and actually features copious amounts of the brown stuff detonated and shot in slow-mo, we should all be able to enjoy it?

....What?

EDIT: Oh I get it. No, I'm asking if laughing and enjoying a parody counts as enjoying something ironically. Is there an ironic distance if we say that Hot Fuzz's aping of Michael Bay and Tony Scott's styles is funny? Or are we just enjoying it as intended?

Dukefrukem
04-08-2015, 02:36 PM
How do we know what intent is though? Did the filmmakers of Torque honestly set out to make the most ironic bike fight ever? Or was that just something they thought would look cool?

I mean, this alone is crazy

http://40.media.tumblr.com/31fd3e86ac7843c428fbe57e91bf8c 02/tumblr_mo5ffvcUzt1r9u466o1_500 .png

number8
04-08-2015, 03:13 PM
Yes, Joseph Kahn has repeatedly said he made it to be a parody of The Fast and the Furious. The main character even quotes Vin Diesel.

Dukefrukem
04-08-2015, 04:03 PM
Just read that in the wiki. News to me.

Morris Schæffer
04-08-2015, 04:30 PM
....What?

EDIT: Oh I get it. No, I'm asking if laughing and enjoying a parody counts as enjoying something ironically. Is there an ironic distance if we say that Hot Fuzz's aping of Michael Bay and Tony Scott's styles is funny? Or are we just enjoying it as intended?

nick angel repeatedly smashing his horn popeye doyle-style during a chase wouldn't be funny unless one is able to recollect similar moments from straight action movies. Similarly, nick angel describing a movie as a'rootin tootin, slambang, barnestormin action extravaganza wouldn't be funny if one has no idea that such a quote could have come from a plethora of high profile movie critics.

edit: speaking strictly about visual style though, the chopper slowmo in hot fuzz was funny, the final chase in Torque, and I'm only guessing it was a chase, was not because it was bad period i suppose. it makes a mockery of two helmers, bay and scott, who can usually be relied upon to at least provide exciting action scenes, mostly sans the memorable characters though.

DavidSeven
04-08-2015, 05:40 PM
What if you don't really enjoy or notice the intended satirical elements of Torque and enjoy it instead as a testosterone pumpin' thrill ride?! That is some next-level ironic enjoyment.

Seriously, though, the intentions behind something like Hot Fuzz seem to be more at the surface. I haven't seen it, but if Shaun of the Dead is any indication, it likely has respectable film-making elements as well. Wright can write and direct. His films have genuine emotion and interesting characters. His actors are competent and deliver convincing performances amid the lampooning. For me, Kahn saying he intentionally messed up continuity and had his actors misplay their roles is a bit too much. Even if I bought it, I'd find the satire a little vapid and off-the-mark. Plus, the dude has been pumping out big, dumb consumer-friendly music videos for the last two decades. So, it strikes me as odd that he'd want to make fun of The Fast and The Furious of all things. The man directed The Thong Song with a straight face for chrissakes.

Winston*
04-08-2015, 09:09 PM
Yes, Joseph Kahn has repeatedly said he made it to be a parody of The Fast and the Furious. The main character even quotes Vin Diesel.

I remember hearing Adam Scott on something saying that half the cast thought they were making a parody and the other half thought they were making a straight up bad-ass Fast and the Furious style movie.

number8
04-09-2015, 10:49 AM
That was on How Did This Get Made.

number8
04-16-2015, 01:56 PM
This is the first 2015 movie to make a billion dollars.

And people thought the battle was going to be Avengers vs Star Wars.

number8
04-16-2015, 01:58 PM
Also, damn, the nearest multiplex to my house playing this is all sold out tonight. On a Thursday night, two weeks after release??

Henry Gale
04-16-2015, 08:21 PM
This is the first 2015 movie to make a billion dollars.

And people thought the battle was going to be Avengers vs Star Wars.

Not to mention it broke the all time opening day record in China with $68.8 million.

I knew it'd hit a billion worldwide a cross $300M domestically, I just didn't think it'd do it already.

number8
04-16-2015, 08:35 PM
LOL, even the Wiz Kalifa song is breaking records. Most streamed song in one day and one week on Spotify.

number8
04-20-2015, 04:10 PM
The hit sequel, which features the last on-screen appearance of Paul Walker, also broke a global record by becoming the fastest film to ever make $1bn at the box office. By the end of Sunday, it had made $1.153bn, which now makes it the seventh biggest film of all time.

Juggernaut.

[ETM]
04-20-2015, 06:18 PM
And people thought the battle was going to be Avengers vs Star Wars.

I still haven't seen any of the F&F films. Well, I saw most of the first one, and some of the second one.

My money is still in my pocket, waiting.

transmogrifier
04-20-2015, 11:47 PM
I saw the first. Maybe I saw the second? I can't remember. Haven't seen any since and yet I still find the slow evolution of the series into a phenomenon fascinating.

Watashi
04-21-2015, 12:21 AM
I think they're all fun movies and enjoy them all. The series doesn't really get great until Fast Five when it becomes a legitimately well-directed action series. I'd take Fast Five over most Bond movies.

DavidSeven
04-21-2015, 01:05 AM
Yeah, Fast Five is a legitimately great movie and coincides with the series' explosion as a cultural phenomenon. Series probably dies off without that movie renewing people's interest and expectations for the franchise. Transitioning to the "team" model and casting actors of color and/or diverse nationality in a bunch of the prominent roles was also huge (see 8's demography stats earlier in the thread).

If you want to skip to the meat of current story arcs, you could probably get away with starting with Fast & Furious 4 (which isn't very good IMO) and continuing from there. You can skip 2 & 3, though Tokyo Drift isn't that bad for what it is.

Dukefrukem
05-17-2015, 02:26 AM
Saw this instead of Max on Sat.

It was OK I guess. Still not good enough for me to YAY it. I haven't really liked these since Fast Five (the one where they drag the safes across Miami). The first scene with Black and Diesel is funny, because Black ages 10 years in 15 seconds. Tony Jaa's scene was a bit of a disappointment. Wish he played a bigger role.

The plot is just so simple and stupid and stupidly Batman-like. There's nothing that ever feels at stake because they ALWAYS come out on top. Then there's the incredible dialog. "Life is binary. Zeros and ones. Only one thing keeps a group together"

I dont know what the percentage is of men vs women seeing this movie, but F&F7 seems like they jacked up the female sexualization 600%. Not that I personally don't like it, just an observation. Though there was 1 line from the Rock that I thought was out of place. It was in the vein of "dont tell me what to do woman!"

Michelle Rodriguez looked gorgeous in this. She was always pretty, but always had a Tomboy thing going. New teeth help the matter.

Love Ronda Rousey, but she cannot act. Gina Carano really needed that role.

Yeh, the sendoff was really good.

number8
05-18-2015, 02:47 PM
I posted the percentage on the first page.

Dukefrukem
05-18-2015, 02:50 PM
I posted the percentage on the first page.

Oh yeh, 49%. Well then...

Irish
06-16-2015, 10:12 AM
Agree with what everybody else said, except where you all went off on that weird tangent about Torque being satire. Because c'mon.

I liked this more or less but it's also exhausting. The whole movie is a series of loosely connected set pieces with no narrative rhythm. You could switch all the action around around and put each piece in a random order and it wouldn't make any difference, because every set piece is insane and over the top and has exactly the same energy level. And all of them feel like the finale of other, lesser action movies.

Entires 5, 6, and now 7 are beginning to blur together for me. I hazily remember this series' self contained mythology. What's interesting about Furious 7 is that it doesn't really give a shit. It sorta pulls a Wrath of Khan, in a sense, because there are a bunch of story elements which allude to previous events, but those allusions aren't ever explained and in the end it doesn't matter. This makes the movie accessible to anyone but it also gives all that mythology less narrative weight.

Yeah. They wasted Tony Jaa. I don't know why Hollywood hires top flight Asian actors and then give them the equivalent of walk on roles (see also: Jet Li in Lethal Weapon IV and The Expendables).

I would have paid $10 just to see The Rock fight Jason Statham. I mean, that scene alone. But yeah. Why hire actors with that much athleticism and then not take advantage of it? The only thing I can figure is that it comes down to production time and insurance premiums.

Statham was a great villain and I hope he does more of that. (Although, it would have been nice if they gave him more to do than occasionally pop out of the shadows and trade quips with one of the heroes. For that matter, it would have been nice if the characters had individual goals or the movie had any kind of story outside of "Kill Jason Statham before he kills you.")

The ending on the beach was graceful and gracious. It was just ... a decent thing to do. I didn't expect that.

I think I'm gonna tap out of the franchise now. The last three entries have their own little peculiar formula and I doubt 8 and 9 and 10 will stray from it. Besides, without Walker it just won't be the same.

Skitch
06-16-2015, 11:23 AM
This was a Fast & Furious movie.

The most unbelievable thing in it is that any one of those characters could land a single punch on Tony Jaa.

Scar
07-26-2015, 12:57 AM
Ugh. Too over the top. It was ridiculous in the wrong kind of way.

I would have ate this shit up in my 20's.

May need to go watch Fast and Furious 5 to cleanse my palette.

Scar
07-26-2015, 01:06 AM
As much as I didn't care for the movie, that send off left me with a lump in my throat.

Ezee E
08-06-2015, 01:56 AM
The whole Kurt Russell Secret Service company popping out of nowhere is the dumbest plot point for movies in years.

There's so many plot points that come out of nowhere that I can't appreciate any of the action here.

This is so bad. I can't believe this got good word of mouth and made so much money.

TGM
09-16-2015, 03:19 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sEN3hj4orE

transmogrifier
09-16-2015, 08:15 AM
The weakest of the last three. The parachuting cars and the trip through the high rises were the right kind of insane, but then they went and threw it all away with a completely dull, dim, boring gunfight battle at the end. After this and 6, I hope they give up this penchant for night battles to end these things.

Dead & Messed Up
11-07-2015, 08:27 AM
I yayed this because I do not regret watching it, and probably because that classy ending left me with nostalgia and contentment... but this movie was all over the place and didn't really escalate the lunacy so much as fiddle with the volume. There were more groans and eye-rolls than cheers and giggles. And if Wan is so disinterested in establishing shots that he has to direct them all like cynical beer commercials, maybe he could just stop. Or at least be equal opportunity and throw in a few shots of men's asses so I don't feel like I'm trapped inside a frat boy's wet dream. (I mean, maybe I still would be, given the frat boy.)

megladon8
07-17-2017, 10:29 PM
So the series isn't exactly where to go if you want realism, but Vin Diesel Dead lifting a car was where I fully checked out.

Dukefrukem
07-17-2017, 10:52 PM
So the series isn't exactly where to go if you want realism, but Vin Diesel Dead lifting a car was where I fully checked out.

Just wait for 8.

Skitch
07-17-2017, 11:32 PM
This series needs to crossover with xXx so we can have double Diesel.

Spinal
07-17-2017, 11:49 PM
So the series isn't exactly where to go if you want realism, but Vin Diesel Dead lifting a car was where I fully checked out.

His character mysteriously gets super powers somewhere around the fifth film. It's one of the stranger aspects of the series.

number8
07-18-2017, 02:07 AM
Deadlifting a car is actually something people are able to do in real life.

Dude flew in #6.