Furious 7: A surprisingly pleasant send-off to Paul Walker

Today, I look at the latest installment in the Fast & Furious franchise.

Furious 7:
After crippling the villain Owen Shaw in the last film, Dominic Toretto and his family and friends disperse after splitting their wealth and trying to settle down. That is until Shaw's vicious older brother Deckard appears out of the blue to execute a revenge plan on the Toretto family. In order to locate Deckard, the crew must regroup and hunt down a device known as God's Eye, and its' hacker creator Ramsey, who are currently entangled with a group of ruthless mercenaries.
    After the tragic death of Paul Walker in late 2013, many fans were concerned with how the filmmakers would handle his death: would his role be diminished? His character killed off? The answer was actually surprising: cast his brothers Caleb and Cody and use the CGI team from Weta Digital (Peter Jackson's company) to recreate Walker's face. The transition is pretty seemless and isn't very noticeable.
   The other returning cast members Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Ludacris, Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, Elsa Pataky, and Jordana Brewster do fine, but of course the acting isn't the highlight of the film. Johnson is (disappointingly) a more minor part in this movie, which is a shame considering how charismatic he is. Jason Statham proves to be an above-average villain (especially for a Fast & Furious movie), though it is sometimes questionable if he could really go toe-to-toe with people like Johnson and Diesel. Game of Thrones' Nathalie Emmanuel is Ramsey, and she is a nice addition to the line-up. Djimon Honsou and Tony Jaa appear as supporting villains, and are also pretty entertaining. It was awesome to see the incredibly bad-ass Jaa showing off his martial arts skills to a Western audience (this is his first Hollywood movie). Professional fighter Ronda Rousey has a small role as a bodyguard who has an entertaining fight scene with Michelle Rodriguez. Kurt Russell has a supporting role as the leader of the covert ops team that hires Toretto, and he adds a touch of humor to his part and you can tell he was just having fun. Lucas Black, Ali Fazal (another first timer in Hollywood), and John Brotherton have small parts, with Black reprising his role from earlier films. Other actors who return for cameos include Luke Evans as the crippled Shaw, Noel Gugliemi as Hector, Sung Kang as Han, and Gal Gadot as Gisele (in photographs and archive footage). Iggy Azalea has a brief cameo in the beginning (her collaborator Rita Ora had one in the previous film, as well).
   James Wan has proven himself as a director of horror films, but he had also been trying to break out in the action scene for some time, and this could definitely cement him as an up-and-comer. Though some fight scenes were a little shaky, most of them were shot crisply and cleanly, and the car chase sequences are kinetic and polished.
   The dialogue is obviosuly not a strong suit in the film, with very repetitive lines (Tyrese always says "This takes crazy to a whole new level" or similar things, and Dom always talks about "family"- I could actually predict when he would say it). The film also likes to shamelessly plug Corona Extra and Belgian ale, though it is tongue-and-cheek and not as bad as in Transformers.
   The soundtrack is nothing special: if you like bland, poppy hip-hop, then this soundtrack is for you! The music by Brian Tyler isn't that great, either, but I wasn't expecting a classic score from this movie, so that's not a major complaint.
    Furious 7 is a very fun movie where you can't overthink the scenes. Although some of the characters can get annoying, especially with the overforced message of "family", the film is more about the action, though the final scene was shockingly touching. 3.5/5 stars.

Another review I liked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSmjT6l_dLg

                                                                    (Image: Wikipedia)




Spoiler Segment: A minor complaint is that Jason Statham is left alive at the end (probably for future sequels), but he is crushed under rubble during the final fight, but at the end he is perfectly fine. What I felt would have been both befitting and ironic is if he ended up crippled next to his brother. Not a major flaw, but a missed opportunity.

Avengers- Age of Ultron: Expectations were not met...

Despite seeing this film last Thursday, I din't review for a week because: a) I was busy and b) I decided to let this one sit for awhile because I have mixed feelings

Avengers, Age of Ultron:
After receiving a vision that reminds him of the near-death experience he had in The Avengers, Tony Stark fears the Avengers may not be able to fight all their own battles, and resolves to create an A.I. system with the help of Bruce Banner that can serve as their back-up. Soon after being created, this new life-form, dubbed Ultron, gains information on all of human history within seconds and, overwhelmed by their capacity for war and destruction, most of it caused by the Avengers (namely Stark) attracting attention to Earth, resolves to give humanity a choice: evolve past violence or be wiped out entirely. The Avengers, whose popularity is waning among the public and who are facing internal conflicts, must find a way to defeat the seemingly unstoppable Ultron and his new companions: the twins Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.
    Despite me keeping my expectations for this film reasonable, I was somewhat disappointed. The main cast of Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johannson, Cobie Smulders, and Samuel L. Jackson are now perfectly fit into their characters and are all entertaining. I also really enjoyed Aaaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olson's take on Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, as they are more anti-heroes than straight villains, and they were great additions (despite Olson's accent being somewhat inconsistent). I was also a fan of how Whedon brought in a lot more supporting characters from other Marvel films: Dom Cheadle's War Machine, Anthony Mackie's Falcon, Idris Elba's Heimdall, Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter, and Stellan Skarsgard's Selvig all make appearances in the film, which was pleasantly surprising. Linda Cardellini, Claudia Kim, and Julie Delpy have small parts, and Kerry Condon lends her voice to the A.I. system F.R.I.D.A.Y. Paul Bettany plays both J.A.R.V.I.S. and Vision in this film, and he is perfectly cast for both. Andy Serkis has a small role as Ulysses Klaue, who I expect will appear in later Black Panther films, and Thomas Kretschmann and Henry Goodman return as Baron von Strucker and Dr. List from the end credits of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, though Strucker's villain potential is thrown completely out the window by the end of the first act. And speaking of wasted potential, my main gripe with the film was the handling of Ultron.
    Ultron was perfectly cast, with James Spader's cool, but menacing voice being a perfect fit. However, Spader's sense of humor, while witty, kind of ruins Ultron by making him feel too human. Ultron's character is that of an emotionless, cruel, murderous robot, so humor should not even be a factor in the portrayal. Ultron, for being the ultimate villain that he is, never really feels all that threatening. In fact, he never really does anything that brutal or violent throughout the film, which was disappointing, as every great MCU villain has had one scene where they do something cruel or gruesome to show they mean business (i.e. Loki drilling a man's eye out in The Avengers, Ronan hammering a man's skull and massacring an entire prison in Guardians of the Galaxy, The Mandarin shooting a man on live TV in Iron Man 3, Obidiah Stane executing an entire group of allies in Iron Man, Ivan Vanko hanging two guards for no reason in Iron Man 2, Alexander Pierce killing his maid in cold blood and then killing his board of directors in Captain America: The Winter Soldier), but Ultron doesn't have that moment, and he's a villain who most definitely SHOULD have. The performance has grown on me over the past week, and I will admit he has some fantastic lines, but ultimately, I still stand by that Whedon didn't use him to his full potential.
    The movie seems obligated to be really funny, as that's the expectation following the first Avengers being packed with witty lines and quotable dialogue, although here it, at times, feels inappropriate and forced. There is a scene where Ultron accidentally severs a man's arm in a fit of rage, and instead of being played as that brutal moment of violence I was talking about earlier as it should have, it's played for comedy, because Ultron says a funny line directly after.
    The action scenes are fun and pulpy, but there are so many of them and they are packed so tightly it feels exhausting and sometimes even boring, even with Whedon's slick direction (the opening action scene has a cool tracking shot mirroring the one from the final battle of the first film). I was, however, very impressed with Whedon's choice to refrain from using Loki whatsoever, as he was suffering from extreme overexposure by the time Thor: The Dark World rolled around.
    Avengers: Age of Ultron may not be as good as the first film, but I still enjoyed it enough and appreciated the emphasis on character development at certain parts of the film. Ultron wasn't used to his full potential, but he was handled a lot better than the majority of MCU villains as of late, and Spader did the best he could have. 3.8/5 stars.

A Spoiler Talk Video I liked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkrP4WtvhgU

                                                  (Image: Wikipedia)






Spoiler Talk: The only other major gripe I had was the post-credits scene. It is about 15 seconds long and all it shows is Josh Brolin's Thanos put on the Infinity Gauntlet and say "Fine, I'll do it myself." in reference to Ultron's failure to wipe out Earth.While this may have been good enough to some, I was honestly expecting more, and the fact that that was the only end-credits scene kind of pissed me off. It was essentially just the same thing they did in the first Avengers film: dangled Thanos on screen and let the fanboys (myself included) drool all over themselves. However, back then it was at least surprising, whereas here, it just felt tired and lazy. I've already seen enough of Thanos in the first film and in Guardians of the Galaxy to where just showing him isn't going to be enough anymore.