Earlier, I went to watch the latest installment of the Fast & Furious franchise. I would like to admit that I was not a big fan of the franchise at first. I love racing – a big fan of Formula 1 and MotoGP even though I neither drive a car nor ride a motorbike. But Fast & Furious was never my cup of tea. I’m not sure exactly why but I came to love the later installments. I am particularly fond of Elena, who is quite a badass.

Like any other action-packed movies with racing as the central plot, it has beautiful fast cars and sexy, bikini-clad ladies. But what Fast & Furious has that the other similar movies do not is heart, which could be due to the fact that the casts know each other long enough that they indeed became a family so when one member is gone, you could sense the sincerity in their goodbyes. And Fast & Furious 7 is indeed a 2-hour long goodbye to Paul Walker, who died 2 years ago in an accident.

Furious 7 followed up from the last scene in the sixth installment – when Han left the team for Tokyo, a mysterious man hunted him down and he was eventually killed. We finally found out that the mysterious man was Shaw’s brother, Deckard Shaw, played by the action movie man, Jason Statham, who seek revenge for his crippled brother. Hobbs, who was bedridden after his fight with Deckard, called for Dom to reassemble his team and find Deckard. But how could he do that when Deckard was a known shadow who worked for the government before? That’s when Kurt Russell’s Mr Nobody and Nathalie Emmanuel’s Ramsey came in to help the team put a light on the shadow and became the hunters.

As mentioned before, you can sense the close bond between the cast members and so the family theme going on is very believable, which also made the last few scenes hard to swallow because you could see the sincerity coming from the characters and the actors themselves when they said their own goodbyes to Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), in particular the very last scene, which was beautifully shot. (I am not going to spoil the scene here so do watch it if you want to know what the last scene is.) The flashback scenes of Brian do not help as well as I choked back the tears.

Despite it all, there are still some hilarious moments – Tyrese Gibson brought the house down with his funny antics. He should honestly try his hands on comedy next.

As for the new characters, I love Kurt Russell’s Mr Nobody. I was on the fence with his character. He is one you would not know if he’s good or bad and I was so uneasy throughout the entire movie waiting for something to happen. Nathalie Emmanuel gelled well with the cast members. I love that she’s the unexpected hacker and took the entire team by surprise. Also, if some of you find her familiar, yes, she is Missandei from Game of Thrones.

However, there were moments of incredulity such as cars flying out of airplanes with parachute. I don’t think no matter how good a racer you are, you would survive it.

Still, I did enjoy the movie and I felt like this would be the last movie from the franchise. I do not know how they could move on from Paul Walker’s death. It would be strange to watch the movie without him if they decide to continue.

Anyway, if you have not watched the movie yet, do catch it and bring some tissues. I give this movie a 4 out of 5.

The trailer…