• From: Farmington, CT
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Topic: Furious 7

reposted from letterboxd:

"Ride or die, right?"
"Let's just ride this time."

In this entry, the Furious Gang takes on Death itself, in the form of Jason Statham. A shroud of mortality has covered these films since the death of Han, each entry hurtling us closer to to his inevitable demise. Paul Walker's death brings something far heavier to the proceedings. "No more funerals," Roman pleads. But you can't out-drive your fate. The best you can do is be hard to catch.

It's not a guilty pleasure. It's not just dumb fun. It's the ideal American blockbuster for this decade, melancholy but brave in the face of death and unafraid of scorn from snobs.

So, yeah, this movie is great. It's an existential film about how humanity confronts death AND an action-blockbuster where cars parachute out of an airplane. Also, it's worth mentioning that the ensemble cast of this mega-franchise installment has only one white man (Paul Walker), and it writes him out of the series at the end. I don't know what more I or anyone could want from a film like this.

Please tell me I'm not the only one on here who loves these movies.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Furious 7

I like all of them except Tokyo Drift. That one is just retarded.

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  • bullet3
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Re: Furious 7

This movie is really bad, and I say that as a huge fan of the series. DocSub, I think you're being swept up by the hype, and when you re-watch it down the line you'll reconsider your stance.

Justin Lin captured lightening in a bottle, and without him, this one just does not work.

The first 40 minutes of this movie are pure torture, like some of the worst attempted dramatic scenes I've seen in years. Like, Attack of the Clones bad. Then finally Kurt Russell shows up to breath some life into things. Then we finally get to the action and....James Wan blows it.

Instead of awesome practical stunt-work, you're constantly getting fake-looking cg car crashes, explosions, last-minute-saves. It all looks phony and digital.

On top of that, the action filmmaking sucks. Cutting on every punch and crash, constant pointless camera movement, mtv montage editing, ugly-ass speed-ramping. It reminds me of a Paul WS Anderson movie.

3, 5, and 6 I will defend big time, but they dropped the ball on this one hard, and much like with Godzilla last year, I suspect that with some distance from all the marketing and hype, the consensus will be that it's a bad movie.

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  • From: Farmington, CT
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Re: Furious 7

bullet3 wrote:

This movie is really bad, and I say that as a huge fan of the series. DocSub, I think you're being swept up by the hype, and when you re-watch it down the line you'll reconsider your stance.

Well, seeing as I watched the first 5 films for the first time over the past week, I can safely say that hype isn't really a factor here. I would say exactly this to you, though. I bet you'll look back more softly on it in time.

bullet3 wrote:

Justin Lin captured lightening in a bottle, and without him, this one just does not work.

The first 40 minutes of this movie are pure torture, like some of the worst attempted dramatic scenes I've seen in years. Like, Attack of the Clones bad. Then finally Kurt Russell shows up to breath some life into things. Then we finally get to the action and....James Wan blows it.

Yeah, I don't see this at all. The drama is handled no worse than any other blockbuster I've seen the past couple years. In fact, I think Letty's identity struggle (while not given much time to develop) is extremely compelling.

bullet3 wrote:

Instead of awesome practical stunt-work, you're constantly getting fake-looking cg car crashes, explosions, last-minute-saves. It all looks phony and digital.

Pretty sure a lot of it was practical, actually. (http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/j … erview.php)

bullet3 wrote:

On top of that, the action filmmaking sucks. Cutting on every punch and crash, constant pointless camera movement, mtv montage editing, ugly-ass speed-ramping. It reminds me of a Paul WS Anderson movie.

I'll admit that it's not up to the standards of Lin's work on the franchise, but I had pretty much no problem with it. I think he uses that camera-flip trick too often, though. (I'll also say that while I'm not familiar with most of Paul WS Anderson's work, his film Pompeii from last year got a disgustingly unfair reception. That's a good film right there. The last two shots are extraordinary.)

bullet3 wrote:

3, 5, and 6 I will defend big time, but they dropped the ball on this one hard, and much like with Godzilla last year, I suspect that with some distance from all the marketing and hype, the consensus will be that it's a bad movie.

Well, Godzilla's still a great film, so you're wrong there as well. Much like the general negative reaction that it had last year, I think that most of the dissent for Furious 7 completely ignores everything that makes it great and picks on details that aren't worth picking on. I'll give you immense credit for talking about the filmmaking, though. Most people are just saying, "LOL THE DIALOGUE SUCKS AND IT'S SO DUMB" which is the most smug bullshit and I can't stand it.

edit: also, just for the record...

1) Furious 7
2) Fast Five
3) Fast & Furious 6
4) The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift

drop in quality

5) Fast & Furious

MASSIVE drop in quality

6) The Fast & the Furious
7) 2 Fast 2 Furious

Last edited by Doctor Submarine (2015-04-05 22:51:59)

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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  • From: Norway
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Re: Furious 7

I won't watch it at all, because I don't care about the driving, the action or the characters, but from what I hear, it's pretty much on par with the others, even if Walker's been CG'd ontop of his brother.

As for bitching about Dialogue sucking and movies being dumb? Can we not just simply agree that some people actually talk like that and/or are dumb? Is it too much to ask? I friggin' loved Godzilla.

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  • From: Sweden
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Re: Furious 7

Fast 7 was pretty bad.

I like silly action films when done right, but they need some semblance of weight to them.

When they jumped the car from skyscraper to skyscraper, I just sort of gave up. I had a tough time swallowing Vin Diesel flying through the air saving Michelle Rodriguez, aswell as the runway length in Furious 6. But this just went into Transformers territory. There was no reason to care after that, that was my honest feeling. The ending juggled 4 different plot threads leading to an unfocused feeling at best. The Gods eye concept is... almost laughable in how childish it is. Atleast the earlier ones for the most part didn't focus too long on things like that, but here they made it a focal point of the story.

No, not much landed right for my tastes unfortunately.

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  • From: Farmington, CT
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Re: Furious 7

Serious question for you:

Who cares if something is silly or unrealistic? Why is that inherently a bad thing?

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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  • bullet3
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Re: Furious 7

It's bad if it looks fake. The moment I realize I'm just watching CG things blowing up on screen, I'm completely detached from the experience. There's nothing more boring than a CGI car crash, or CG buildings collapsing.

The reason Fast Five is great, is you can tell there was a real practical safe they were dragging, so all the action feels crazy intense and you get a real rush out of it.

CG cars jumping between CG buildings does nothing for me. digital Vin Diesel out-driving a collapsing parking garage does nothing for me.

You know the best scene in this whole movie? The fight on the door as its sliding down. It's inventive and crazy, but in a context that still feels believable, so you get a real good kick out of it.

That's my big disappointment with this entry.
On top of that, the car driving sequences are shot in like 2 second bursts, so you never even really get to appreciate the chase, or the driving skills involved.

When the hacker they're rescuing is hanging on the hood of the car during the big mountain chase, all I could think is how much more exciting the end of Death Proof was.

Is it really too much to expect a driving-centric 200 million dollar action movie to have well filmed car chases? Not every movie can be Ronin or French Connection, but even by the standards of this series I find it pretty weak.

My hope, if the new Mad Max is the masterpiece I think it will be, is it will show mainstream audiences how this type of action is supposed to be filmed.

Last edited by bullet3 (2015-04-10 00:50:12)

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  • From: London, UK.
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Re: Furious 7

bullet3 wrote:

The reason Fast Five is great, is you can tell there was a real practical safe they were dragging, so all the action feels crazy intense and you get a real rush out of it.

Sorry but that CG safe was AWFUL! They may have had one, they may have pulled it, they may even have used a few shots of it, but it was mostly CG and it was mostly bad.

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