So, I now move on to Fast & Furious 7 in my deep dive rewatching of the Fast and Furious series. This is the last one that I had seen before. I haven’t seen 8 at all yet. And I know this is the last one with Paul Walker, so it’s the end of an era. I was looking forward to watching it again. I actually ended up watching the Extended Cut for this film but I’m not sure which bits were extended.

Here are my thoughts whilst rewatching it.

  • I liked that one of the first words in the movie was “Bollocks”
  • Great cold open, with Jason Statham talking quietly to his brother but as we pan out we see it’s not just them! Very clever
  • Nice transition from London to the desert road, with the camera panning up to the blue sky and basically doing a 360 rotation
  • This one is directed by James Wan, his first time directing this franchise, and quite early on you see a few new interesting camera movements
  • Race Wars is back! And Hector’s back too! Great to see these nods back to the first movie. I wish Hector had been in more of the films. I always liked him
  • It’s a funny school run scene with Brian
  • The Rock probably has it written into his contract that he has to land on a table in at least one fight per movie
  • People keep landing on very fortuitously placed cars in these movies
  • I find it a pretty powerful shot when Brian manages to shut the door of the mini van just in time before the parcel bomb explodes and then ends up smacked up against the window in front of his son
  • So Shaw sent Dom a bomb that was synched with the bomb he placed in Han’s car? They both exploded at the same time. That seems like a very intricate plan. And it’s lucky for Shaw that Dom was able to answer the phone at that particular moment and that he was right next to the package at the time. I know, I know, it’s a movie, but still
  • The Incredible Hulk show! Great to see Lou Ferrigno indirectly in a scene with The Rock and Vin Diesel. Is this a nod to the Incredible Hulk references in Tokyo Drift?
  • I forgot that they actually reshow, and insert new scenes from, Tokyo Drift! I like how this film makes Tokyo Drift a much more legit member of the franchise. We even see Sean again. Made me laugh that they kept Lucas Black very darkly lit, to hide the fact that he has actually aged about 9 years
  • Brian really needs to tie his tie up properly for funerals
  • I don’t like James Wan’s directing of the car chase when Dom chases Shaw from the funeral. I preferred Justin Lin’s work there in previous movies
  • Kurt Russell! Every movie is better if it has Kurt Russell in it
  • Corona! It’s not a true F&F movie unless it has a Corona appearance. And this is probably the biggest Corona reference of the whole series
  • Fast & Furious did heists and now it’s doing hacking. Love it
  • It always cracks me up how things happen with perfect timing in movies. Like when Dom asks Kurt Russell about his crew and Russell points out that they are just arriving at that very moment
  • Skydiving with cars! Not sure I’ve seen that before. That’s a pretty damn cool scene
  • To be honest I think the bit where they are hijacking the bus in the Aberzaijani mountains is possibly the least believable bit in the whole series so far. And the straight bit in that road is probably longer than the runway in the sixth movie!
  • Brian is pretty bad ass when jumps onto the bus and kills about 4 guys single handed. I love when we see his cop skills in play
  • I love how Dom uses his hydraulics to bump Ramsey up into his car. Nice little touch
  • Beautiful shot where the cars jump over the hill and it all goes quiet and you just hear birds, before they then land in the trees noisily. Nicely done
  • How the hell did Roman join the action again with a dramatic jump when he was in the woods full of trees? Does he have a turbo boost? Who cares though. Great entrance.
  • THAT scene where Brian is running up the side of the bus while it tips over the side of the cliff and then hangs on to Letty’s spoiler. That is breathtaking. One of, if not THE, best stunts in the whole series. I’ll be doing a breakdown of the best stunts in the series once I’ve seen the 8th film, but at the moment I would say that this stunt is no.1 or no.2 so far.
  • How the hell did the crew get to Dom so quick at the bottom of the mountain
  • I like how Ramsey calls out all their character traits, having only just met them, including Roman as the joker
  • Ronda Rousey! I forgot she was in this
  • Damn, Tej can fight!! He is always so full of hidden talents. I want to see a standalone Tej prequel movie
  • Jumping cars between skyscrapers. CRAZY! Check out my comments below in the memorable scenes and best stunts section about this scene
  • It was very cool when Kurt Russell got into killing mode in the warehouse but about 5 seconds later he gets shot? Pity he didn’t get longer to shine
  • Beautiful shot of the cars spinning next to each other and exchanging Ramsey. Very unrealistic but beautiful
  • Only The Rock can flex his way out of an arm cast
  • Great to see Dom and Shaw have a proper street fight
  • Very cool fight that Brian has when they’re sliding down the stairs on that bit of a metal like a sledge
  • I love when people get hooked onto weights and then the weights get thrown over a ledge. And Brian’s ‘Too slow’, as the camera tracks back, while the other guy falls down the lift shaft, cracked me up. Nice callback and very cheeky of Brian
  • Hobb’s kamikaze move of driving his ambulance off the bridge and landing on the drone seemed pretty ridiculous. Not sure how he knew the drone was right there?
  • I know Fast and Furious movies can be ridiculous but the end battle in this one does seem slightly over the top. From Hobb’s ambulance dive, to Dom stomping the car park roof to make Shaw fall down the sinkhole, to Dom surviving his car jump. And the bit when Letty tells him she has regained her memory is kind of emotional but also slightly cheesy how they did it. I certainly didn’t find this bit as emotional as the latter moments of F&F6
  • It’s fun to see Hobbs lock Shaw up, particularly as they have just started in their own movie
  • Possibly the biggest number of locations in this movie? London, Tokyo, L.A., Dominican Republic, Azerbaijan, Abu Dhabi
  • And then we come on to the ending. Wow. I don’t know how the actors did that beach scene. Must have been very tough for them. But I really like how they let Brian/Paul have his goodbye. I love the bit where Brian and Dom get their moment through the car windows at the end and then Brian drives off. Very touching and with poignant, perfect music too. A fitting way to say goodbye to Paul Walker
  • What astounded me just now is learning just how much of the film Paul Walker missed. I always thought he died after the majority of the film had been shot and that it was only the beach scene and goodbye scene at the end that was CG or VFX. But I’ve just learned that he actually died nearer halfway into the filming and that several big key scenes have a CG head or his head composited from old footage or his brothers standing in as a body double. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/10/paul-walker-furious-7-scenes-digitally-recreated Here is a list of some of the shots where Paul wasn’t there https://imgur.com/a/EGj5r. I’m stunned. I literally had no idea whilst watching the movie. The only bit I could kind of see the joins were the scenes at the beach and the final goodbye in the car. But perhaps that is because I was looking for the joins. The other bits are incredible. I wonder how they did his voice. I need to learn more about this.

Deleted scenes
Even though I was watching the extended version I still found plenty of deleted scenes online. 

  • One interesting one is Letty going to the hospital where she thinks she was taken after the car crash. And they brought back Gal Gadot as Gisele for the flashback and didn’t use it in the end! I don’t think Gisele appeared anywhere else in the film? (In flashback form, because she died at the end of Fast and Furious 6)
  • Another interesting scene where Ramsey almost leaves in Abu Dhabi but Dom convinces her to stop running
  • And a very cool scene where Letty gets a call from the hospital nurse who explains that they couldn’t find her records because she wasn’t listed under Letty Ortiz, she was listed under Letty Toretto. I guess that’s when she finds out that Dom and her were married! Interesting that all these didn’t even make it into the extended cut

Main characters
Dom
Brian
Letty
Mia
Roman
Tej
Hobbes
Elena
Deckard
Shaw
Ramsey
Sean
Mr Nobody (Kurt Russell!)

Corona scenes – 1
Kurt Russell actually presents Dom with a bucket of Corona and references it by name!

Corona references – 2

Most memorable scene
There really are loads in this film. Skydiving with cars and driving through skyscrapers are certainly up there. THere’s loads of action and there are loads of different locations. But for me the main scene that I think of when I think of Fast & Furious 7 is that scene of Brian and Dom driving down the road and Brian smiles and then drives off. Beautiful and touching.


Best stunt
This movie is PACKED with stunts. I won’t even be able to mention them all. But here are my standout ones.

  • Skydiving with cars – that’s pretty crazy right? But this is Fast & Furious. Crazy is normal. It’s no wonder that Roman didn’t want to reverse his perfectly normal car out of a perfectly good aeroplane. I wouldn’t have either!
  • Jumping between three skyscrapers in Abu Dhabi – again this is just crazy. I love Brian’s “Dom, cars don’t fly” line right before they jump out the building. Very well done and certainly a Wow moment.
  • But for my favourite stunt of the movie I’ve gone for a more down to earth one. That scene where Brian is hanging off the edge of the truck that’s falling over the cliff and then he climbs up and slow motion runs up the side of the truck, jumps and hangs on to the rear spoiler of Letty’s car that is handbrake skidding right at the edge of the cliff is just astounding. What a visual treat and a nerve-wracking moment. I love it. Could be a contender for best stunt of the whole series.

Quote of the movie

  • “No more funerals”.
    “Just one more. His”
  • “Dom, cars don’t fly. Cars don’t fly!”

Score – 8.5/10
This is a great movie. So much happens. So many locations. They resolve all the issues they had. We say an emotional goodbye to Paul Walker. I still don’t think it is up there with my first reaction to watching Fast Five, but it’s definitely up there with the best of the rest. 

Ranking
Fast Five – 9/10
The Fast and the Furious – 8.5/10 
Fast & Furious 7 – 8.5/10
Fast & Furious 6 – 8.5/10
2 Fast 2 Furious – 8/10 
Fast & Furious – 7/10
The Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift – 6.5/10
Los Bandoleros – 3/10 
Turbo-Charged Prelude – 2/10