April 3, 2015 -- I wasn't a big fan of the first film in this series, “The Fast and the Furious” which was released in 2001, 14 years ago now, and the lackluster sequels did not amount to much until “Fast Five” came along in 2011 and raised the action to a much higher level and added a whole team of new characters, including Dwayne Johnson (“The Rock”). The new characters became a kind of action film family.

“Fast & Furious 6” (2013) raised the action bar even higher and the sense of family got stronger. Just when you thought the action scenes could not get any bigger, any crazier, that is just what happens in “Furious 7.” Here you've got people driving cars out of airplanes and “Road Warrior” stunts during highway hijackings and cars crashing out of one tall building, then flying through the air into another, and another. It is very silly, but also entertaining.

What really makes this film work, however, is the cast of multiracial, multiethnic central characters carried over from previous films in the series, Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) Mia (Jordana Brewster) Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and Tej (Ludacris). Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) is back in this film as well, along with Elana (Elsa Pataky). Roman, Tej, Hobbs and Elana were all introduced into this series in “Fast Five.”

A new, unnamed, government agent, played by Kurt Russell, shows up. The bad guy this time is Deckard Shaw, played by action star Jason Statham. Deckard Shaw first appeared when he killed a member of Toretto's team in Tokyo in a teaser scene buried in the credits of “Fast & Furious 6” which set up the story for this film. In this film, Deckard Shaw is like the Wolverine, indestructible. He's everywhere and he's relentless.

Indeed, this film begins right where the last film left off, with Shaw calling Toretto to announce his intention to kill him and his family to avenge what they did to his brother, Owen Shaw (played by Luke Evans) who was the bad guy in the previous film. There is a scene in which Shaw kills a lot of people and blows up stuff at a hospital, where he orders the medical staff to take care of his brother, or else.

The basic story in this film is a lot like the previous film. Toretto and his team are asked by a government secret agent to recover a computer program developed by a hacker called Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel of the “Game of Thrones” TV series). This program will enable them to find Shaw and put and end to his vendetta. It turns out that they don't really need to find Shaw. He finds them. There is yet another bad guy associated with Shaw, Jakande (Djimon Hounsou of “Guardians of the Galaxy”) who has his own private army of mercenaries, including a formidable fighter, Kiet (played by martial arts action star Tony Jaa of the “Ong Bak” series of action films).

The movie makes good use of the incredibly acrobatic Tony Jaa in some amazing fight scenes. Not only that, but mixed martial arts expert Ronda Rousey, who plays a security guard, Kara, has a rousing fight with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) in Dubai while both women wear very fancy dresses. In the previous movie, Letty fought yet another professional fighter, martial arts expert Gina Carano. You would expect to see women covered up in Dubai, it being an Arab country, but there are many beautiful women in this movie wearing next to nothing, and the camera repeatedly lingers on their mostly-bare butts. There are more asses in this movie than there are in Congress.

The story takes the team all over the world, but it ends up in Los Angeles with high speed car chases, cars dodging missiles fired from a drone, machine gun fire from a helicopter and from the drone, lots of big explosions, and finally a battle royal grudge match between Toretto and Shaw with the two men beating on each other with big metal bars.

The film ends on a sentimental note with a tear-jerking tribute to the late Paul Walker, who died before finishing this film. Using what the director, James Wan, calls a “bag of cinematic tricks” the film was successfully completed without Walker. His two brothers stood in for him in some scenes. Whatever tricks Wan used to keep Paul Walker's image in the film, they worked. The audience at the theater where I saw this film applauded at the end. I did too. Many of us waited until the end of the credits to see if there were any teasers buried there like there were in the previous film. There aren't any. Nobody wants this series to end, and it won't anytime soon. This film rates a B+.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in digital formats, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

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