Best Movie for Bald Men 2015: Furious 7

Hi and howdy gang,

Some would say its unbelievable. Some would say inconceivable. But the truth of the matter is the Bro-tastic movie about drag racers in California has spawned 6 sequels and turned into a globe-trotting epic. And even more surprising, like George Clooney it has only gotten better with age!

Up to the 7th my top picks for the series would have either been Tokyo Drift or Fast and Furious 6, and I have heard through the grape-vine that Fast Five is widely considered the "Strikes Back" of the series.  To be honest, I don't really need to see any of the other sequels, because I guarantee Furious 7 will completely blow them out of the water.

#ThemDomes!

Normally this would be the part where I give a brief summary of the plot, but I assume most of you would just skip that anyway. What we have here is a Super Hero movie, plan and simple. If you changed the names of the characters and put it into a Heroes-esque world of para-humans or whatever, you would have a pretty solid new IP that could be built into some serious sequels. Instead, you posit a world in which two bald men initiate a fight by, intentionally, RAMMING THEIR CARS TOGETHER, then get out and start fist fighting.

If you read that sentence and say to yourself "Sam, you handsome bastard, that sounds incredible. And did you say, 'Bald Men', even better!", go ahead and see this one in theaters. Its worth it. If not, I would recommend the white knuckle thrill ride of Downtown Abbey to tide you over until next Oscar season.

I've seen toast that's wetter than this

In all seriousness, this movie is awesome. The fight choreography is tight, the stunts are insane, and the one-lines groan inducing. It is sad to see Paul Walker pass away last year, but it gives Vin Diesel more screen time which he uses mostly to spout one-liners about the family, wink at the camera, and deadlift a sports car (which is almost a plot point in and of itself). This series has accepted that this guy is pretty much unbreakable, which is highlighted by a late fight scene between him and Jason Stath-I mean "Shaw" where he gets brained in the head by a piece of rebar and shrugs it off like a jab from Ludacris. Again, its stupid, but incredible to see.

The rest of the cast falls into the easy tropes of Comic Relief (Earn that Paycheck, Tyrese), computer/smart guy (Luda!), Hot girl (the chick that Grey Worm wants to bang), feisty Latina (take a wild guess), and token white family member guy (RIP Paul). You also have Dwayne Johnson, who I could watch read the phone book. That guy just exudes charisma and charm, and while hospitalized pretty early in the movie completely steals it when he flexes SO HARD he breaks out of a cast.

Incredible!

My friend, who is a doctor, says that action is quote "100% physically impossible" end-quote, but evidently he doesn't understand the world that we are dealing with here.


While I had bottom gutter expectations that were completely exceeded, there were a couple things that seemed like missed chances. First of, there were several times that monster one-liners could have been dropped and instead feel flat. One time Vin looks directly at the camera and says something to the tune of "This time, we will have to be more than Fast". Period, cut to different scene. Come on, Vin! I practically screamed "we need to be Furious" but then realized I was in a dark room with 5 other people and bit my tongue.  Also, super hot UFC Rhonda Roussey is in a brief moment to be an unwitting pawn against Michelle Rodriguez's badassery, and she doesn't even throw her in an arm-bar! Weak!

They also put a lot of effort into bringing all characters to the front-light and forced in some cheese-tastic romance and friendly banter moments, but these are clearly just some filler to make this movie more than 45 minutes of rap-video edits, cars flying through the air, and people being thrown through various planes and tables of glass.

At the end of the day there really isn't much else to say. Is it awesome and cool to watch? Yes. Will the tight acting and smooth plot garner some serious acamdemy attention? Absolutely not. If you are like me and have some spare time to head to the cinemas, this is an easily pick for the drought of entertainment between the indie-heavy winter and big blockbuster summer.

Oh, and if you are chrome-dome like the large man writing this, you owe it to the rest of us to finance this. Represent!

Final Grade: B+

As made mention earlier, there is not much else coming out soon, so I think I'll have another Netflix round-up for the people playing the literal home game.

I'll catch you in a dark room somewhere,

Tuck