“Ride or die.” Those words only appear a few times in the franchise – most famously out of Vin Diesel’s gravelly baritone in Fast & Furious 6 – but they have become the personal motto for how this franchise has continued, grown, succeeded and become greater with each film. Today, Furious 7, the latest in the …
Big action, gravity-defying car shenanigans, and unstoppable macho energy make for a ridiculously fun ride. Yes, some sloppy editing bogs down director James Wan’s more-is-more finale, but that’s only in comparison to the other set pieces, which are damn near flawless. Fans of the action genre will want to catch this one early and often.
Of course, Guardians isn’t perfect, as it struggles to find a consistent tone. Sometimes it wants to be more adult, with bawdier language and sexual innuendo. For instance, Quill’s rumination that “If I had a black light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting!” is pretty sophisticated for mainstream PG-13 fare. Other times, it feels as though the filmmakers are pandering to a much younger audience. You can almost visualize a ‘Dancing Groot’ doll gyrating in your kid’s Happy Meal.
For every good sequence, there’s one that’s muddled with bad camerawork and editing. Like a lot of blockbuster action, it’s barely legible; you have to work to keep up with it, and that work interferes with the enjoyment. The story also sags in the middle, as it seems to exist mainly to fill out the run-time. The protagonists take the MacGuffin to a dude they wish to sell it to, but the only real function of the section is to exposit what it is. It turns a big chunk of the plot into a shrug.