When I owned a Nissan Skyline GT-R—in fact, I have owned an R32, an R33, and an R34—I used to tell the uninitiated that it was the sports car of "Fast & Furious" fame. That was until I saw the movies. I was prompted to change my justification tactics immediately to the beautiful design and exemplary engineering that characterize these cars: ATTESA E-TS, Super-HICAS, the straight-six RB26TT engine. It was a mission to reclaim the dignity of these wonderful pieces of machinery. But eventually, I got rid of them.
"Furious 7" is just the latest in the 14-year-old chain of "Fast & Furious" movies. It's the seventh variation of the theme: the good guys versus the bad guys, an undercover cop sympathizes with good-natured, honorable criminals who ultimately toss aside their reservations to team up against an ultimate evil. Souped-up cars and street racing serve as the backdrop, and they are responsible for the cult-like following these movies enjoy among the car community.
This time around, there are two really bad guys: Disgruntled former Special Forces operative, Deckard Shaw, who sets out to take revenge on everyone who put his brother Owen into a coma in "Fast & Furious 6"), and Mose Jakande, a terrorist who has gained control of "God's Eye," an uncomfortably realistic program that allows its operator to track down any human being in real time. He stole it from Megan Ramsey, a hacker brilliant enough to provide the world with this unlikely dream of an NSA operative, but unable to prevent it, and herself, from falling into the wrong hands.
A powerful tool like "God's Eye" must, of course, come under the benevolent control of the U.S. government, and therefore no effort is spared to track down the evildoers. A slightly shady government rep convinces Dominic Toretto, aka "Alpha," and his team to join forces to hunt down Jakande and Shaw. Sure enough, Ramsey ends up in a Setra bus in—where else?—the outskirts of the former Soviet Union. Protected by a convoy of Mercedes-Benz G-Wagens and W220 S-class sedans, the kind that you can pick up for 10 grand, the cabal soon finds itself chased by a clownish assortment of armored vehicles, driven by Toretto's group of former-criminals-turned-good guys. Absurdly, Ramsey is rescued by our hero through driving off a cliff.
The aging Toretto, resembling a turtle not only in appearance, is a man of few words, and their substance rarely ventures beyond the platitudes offered a contemporary tear-off calendar, as the shopworn notions of "honor" and "family values," and cringeworthy depictions of "fun times" at the beach, are supplemented with a generous dose of political correctness. "Furious 7" applies multiculturalism and non-traditional gender roles with a thick brush.
The "Old World" doesn't fare well in this motion picture. In a drag race at the outset, it's not the American muscle car that blows its engine at almost 10,000 rpm, but an Audi R8. Supercars by Ferrari, Lamborghini and Bugatti make no more than a fleeting appearance. And the chief villain is seen driving a Maserati Ghibli and an Aston Martin DB9, painted in cold grey and—the arrogance!—almost entirely devoid of the tacky "enhancements" that characterize the hero cars of "Furious 7." Both of them sigh out their souls in a head-on collision with Toretto's souped-up muscle cars, in one of the least intelligent interpretations of an automotive duel depicted on the silver screen.
While "Furious 7" claims to celebrate the culture of the car, it actually has little respect for that culture. Too many driving and stunt scenes seem computer generated. Throughout the movie, the cars move jerkily and in unrealistic, close formation. How fitting that many of the cars shown in the movie, regardless of the brand, are equipped with V-8 crate engines produced by General Motors. It makes life easier for the film crew, and (spoiler alert) the sounds are fake, anyway.
But even the fake engines are more fun to listen to than the dialogue, which assumes the role of background noise as the crash-heavy action drags on through Abu Dhabi and finally arrives in Los Angeles. On its home turf, Toretto's team faces a killer drone operated with the help of "God's Eye." The odds are in favor of the "bad guys," but things take an unexpected twist-or do they? Hopefully we won't kill the suspense by revealing at this point that the "good guys" win. This is not a French movie, after all.
For a while, there was hope that this would be the last movie of the obnoxious franchise, but the rumor mill says that there will be at least one sequel. To this writer's personal dismay, more than one Skyline GT-R can be spotted in "Furious 7." I might need to hold off on another purchase for a while.
As a noisy and altogether irksome 137 minutes comes to an end, cop and family man Brian O'Conner catches up with Toretto in a two-car formation drive that faintly resembles a stoplight race. A final smile, and O'Conner's white Toyota Supra vanishes in the distance. Precisely at this moment, moviegoers are expected to get out their handkerchiefs. O'Conner, of course, is played by none less than Paul Walker, the actor who perished in a horrific accident in late 2013 as the hapless passenger of a Porsche Carrera GT.
The final scene of "Furious 7" is one of its few touching moments—and the attraction of a movie so juvenile that its PG-13 rating seems excessively harsh.
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