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Movies & TV

05th Apr 2015

Fast & Furious 7 gets rave reviews on its opening weekend

Well, this is surprising

Tony Cuddihy

The fans love it, and now the critics do too.

Fast & Furious 7 has already taken €140m on its opening weekend in the United States, and Paul Walker’s final film has received rave reviews from critics.

Fun for all the family, it seems. Late Mother’s Day present, anyone?

cars

Mashable.com have put together the film’s best appraisals,

From the New York Times: Compared to almost any other large-scale, big-studio enterprise, the Furious brand practices a slick, no-big-deal multiculturalism, and nods to both feminism and domestic traditionalism. “I don’t have friends. I have family,” Dom says, and there is something beautiful and downright utopian about the idea that the bonds among his gear heads and speed demons transcend race and nationality. Gasoline is thicker than blood.

Fast Furious 7

From Entertainment Weekly: No one forks over 10 bucks to see one of these flicks for its logic. We go for the bananas demolition-derby mayhem. Furious 7 delivers that with the direct visceral rush of an EpiPen. For two hours and change, we’re treated to a high-octane orgy of some of the most exhilarating stunts ever put on film, including one showstopper where Walker balances on an overturned bus that’s teetering on the edge of a cliff.

From the L.A. Times: Furious 7 is the fuel-injected fusion of all that is and ever has been good in The Fast and the Furious saga that began in 2001 with souped-up cars and a stripped-down story about a tightknit East L.A. street racing crew…While it will never win that best picture Oscar, as Diesel has suggested, the film does hit on all the franchise cylinders — high-stakes action, unbreakable friendships, absolute loyalty, self-deprecating humor, a high-energy hip-hop and rock score and an endless string of high-speed chases between muscle-bound cars just made for crashing.

paul-walker-vin-diesel

From Forbes: There are two connecting threads that turn it all into a single storyline, but they exist merely to get us from one sequence to the next with barely enough time to catch our breath before the adrenaline kicks in like nitro again. It doesn’t need to do much more than that, so long as the action and stunt work are as over-the-top excellent as they are. But it does actually do more, by creating personal narratives for a few characters to add extra heart and personal drama to the festivities.

The film is currently ranked 80% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, a remarkably high score for an action film.

We’re sold.

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