Fast and Furious has always been designed as a pure adrenaline rush. The film franchise that began by reinvigorating the long dead drag racing genre has morphed into a Mission Impossible style heist series. In order for a movie like Furious 7 to work, there has to be an unwritten agreement with the audience to suspend your belief. One of the keys to the franchise, is that the fanbase has grown up with the movies and has experienced the evolution of the series, along with the characters. 

In the latest installment, the Furious gang find that they are being hunted and killed by a deadly terrorist. The killer is the brother of Luke Evans from the Fast and Furious 6, on a bloody revenge rampage. Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) gets an opportunity to track down the killer, if they help out the government on a secret mission. 

Much like how movie action heroes of the 80’s and 90’s survived a hail of machine gunfire without getting shot, Furious 7 has characters fall off of cliffs in cars, get into head-on collisions, and stand in front of explosions without receiving a scratch. Sometimes they even rub their neck or arm to show that they are human…sometimes. Everyone also has a corny punchline on deck, like the true descendants of Schwarzenegger. The movie is not set in reality and doesn’t try to convince you otherwise. The only question is, if you are willing to buy into the cartoonish nature of it all.

Much of the emotional baggage of the film lands on Vin Diesel’s shoulders and he is not quite able to carry the load. His line delivery is completely wooden and it seems that he is taking the movie more seriously than anyone else in it, aside from Statham. His performance consistently inspires chuckles, in moments that were intended to be heartfelt. 

Director James Wan (The Conjuring) is able to capture and highlight what makes each character’s personality unique and every actor gets multiple times to shine throughout the movie. There are also numerous callbacks to previous films, as well as twists on relationships that many thought they previously knew. It is not a coincidence that all of the characters are built up as larger than life archetypes and superheros either. The film feels like an Expendables film, if the cast were in their prime today and it’s hard to not have fun with the ridiculous novelty of it all. It’s also clear that the studio doesn’t simply want to make a movie that competes with The Avengers, they want to actually turn the Fast & Furious franchise into The Avengers.

Jason Statham is the one man wrecking crew, Ian Shaw. In a movie filled with pseudo-superheroes, Statham is the perfect pseudo-Terminator. Shaw has the cartoon-like ability to appear literally anywhere in the world that Dom and his crew travel to. Whether barreling down a mountain in a custom Shaw-mobile or popping up at a party in Abu Dhabi, Shaw has an international passport despite being one of the worst terrorists that the world has ever seen. We are introduced to Shaw after he blows up a hospital to speak with his fallen brother and the destruction only escalates from there. There are rules to every movie’s world and in the Fast & Furious universe, the police do not exist or respond to crisis. And if they do make an appearance, they are as easily dispensable as a video game NPC.

Wan adapts his style for the franchise’s broad action canvas. He manages to also translate his trademark rotating camera work in some inventive ways, while keeping both the hand-to-hand action as thrilling as the car stunts. The breakneck pacing is the true strength of the movie. The action in Furious 7 is relentless, yet whenever it takes brief times to catch its breath, Wan hits you in the face with melodrama designed to pull at the heartstrings of longtime Furious fans. He also handles Paul Walker’s passing as seamlessly as possible. The revenge plot leaves a logical way for Walker’s Brian to make an exit from the series and the tribute at the end was as touching as it was intended to be.

Furious 7 is not only exactly what you expect, it is exactly what it should be. The movie carries itself with a cocky charm, that knows that it is a blockbuster. Is it a perfect movie? No. Or even a good movie? That is questionable. But the movie accomplishes what the filmmakers set out to do. They set out to make an undeniable spectacle of loud action and bombastic set-pieces. That is exactly what Furious 7 is. If you are a fan of the franchise and have already bought into the ridiculousness, you will have a blast with this movie. Furious 7 has turned on the engine of the summer movie season, now it’s time to go on the ride.