Furious 7

Furious 7 has so much adrenaline and testosterone that women who see the movie could become pregnant.

If you saw the extra scene at the end of Fast & Furious 6, you already know the story. Jason Statham stars as Deckard Shaw – the very angry and vengeful brother of the dude the Fast and Furious gang defeated in the last movie.

Deckard Shaw wants to exact revenge on Dom (Vin Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker) and the rest of them, and he has a particular set of skills to make it happen, since he is a wanted former Black Ops soldier with knowledge of secrets so nasty, Black Ops have been trying to kill him, but they can’t (because he is Jason Statham).

Just when it looks like Shaw is about to finish off Dom, a new, mysterious figure steps in. Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) tells Dom he can give the gang what they need to get rid of Shaw, but they have to do him a favor first. Some hacker has developed a system to track down anyone on the planet, but the hacker has been kidnapped by some evildoers, who plan to use the system for … well … evil!

Can Dom, Brian and the gang find the hacker?

Was “Mr. Nobody” the best name these writers could come up with?

Seriously?

In Fast & Furious 6, they took on a tank! A Tank!

How in the name of Vin Diesel is Furious 7 supposed to top that?

OH MY GOD THEY DID!!!!!

If you didn’t already know what you were getting in Furious 7, director James Wan takes the first ten minutes of the film to deliver about 100 women in scandalous bikinis, a brutal fight scene between The Rock and Jason Statham, a drag race between two fast and furious cars, and Vin Diesel looking all tough and vulnerable because Dom still loves the amnesia-addled Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), along with plenty of platitudes about how it’s all about family.

Wan and the team deliver an action-packed movie with car chases through forests, buses diving off the edges of cliffs, stuff being blown up by every weapon you can imagine and some good old fashioned street brawling. It is an action extravaganza in every sense of the phrase as they push the envelope further, faster and more furious than you can ever remember.

While Furious 7 is visually stunning, Diesel should back off those claims about how it should win an Oscar for Best Picture. Writer Chris Morgan is much better at bringing the characters to life with some deadpan reaction dialogue when they are faced with a stunning turn of events, plenty of bonding moments among the family and one-liners that work because we know and love the figures on the screen. When it comes to storytelling, Morgan isn't doing as well.

Furious 7 feels like two ideas slapped together. We have the whole vengeance plot as Shaw and Dom each try to knock the other one off, but it doesn't get enough attention and development to be anything special.

Then, the audience has a new plot about the hacker and the secret device that must be recaptured, but the two stories only intersect when someone realizes we haven’t seen Statham on screen enough. It’s far from an organic melding of stories, but I have a feeling many of you don’t care.

Nor will many of you care about the extended final showdown that keeps going on and on and on. It is quite a spectacle to see them blow Los Angeles to smithereens, but no In-N-Out Burger locations were harmed during filming, so we can watch safely and without guilt.

Along with being an entertaining film, Wan pushes every audience member to the brink of tears with a touching, heartfelt good-bye to the late Paul Walker in the movie’s final moments. It’s time to pass the tissues.

Furious 7 is Rated PG-13 for prolonged frenetic sequences of violence, action and mayhem, suggestive content and brief strong language.