Action sequel is a fitting tribute

FAST and FURIOUS 7 (12A, 137 Action/Thriller/Romins) mance Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Kurt Russell. Director: James Wan. It’s not the gleaming highoctane motors, scantily clad women or the stunts that will have audiences burning rubber to their multiplexes.

Instead, it’s the final screen appearance of handsome leading man Paul Walker, who died halfway through production, which will guarantee supercharged box office returns for James Wan’s sleek sequel.

Fast and Furious 7 is dedicated to Walker’s memory and his unfinished scenes have been respectfully completed using previously unseen footage from earlier films, or by digitally grafting his facial features onto the bodies of his brothers, Caleb and Cody, who act as stand-ins.

Screenwriter Chris Morgan’s desire to top the outrageous set pieces of previous films repeatedly sacrifices realism, going for broke when he hopes to persuade us that Vin Diesel, Walker and their co-stars could skydive their vehicles into position on a winding mountain road by driving cars out of a plane and opening parachutes attached to their plummeting vehicles at the last second.

The action begins directly after events of Fast & Furious 6 with corrupt British soldier Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) on life support in a London hospital.

Owen’s older brother Ian (Jason Statham) seeks revenge against Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O’Conner (Walker) and their crew.

Ian hacks into the computer of federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) to ascertain the whereabouts of the team and doles out a near fatal pummelling to Hobbs in the process.

Fast and Furious 7 stitches together all of the previous films including a cameo for Lucas Black as Sean Boswell from the third chapter.