admin
Tafadzwa Zimoyo Entertainment Reporter
The action-packed movie “Fast & Furious 7” premièred worldwide last Friday, with Zimbabwe screening the movie at Westgate and Eastgate Ster Kinekor.
Local movie fanatics thronged the theatres to watch the film before being entertained by top local disc jockeys and a car show.Eastgate Ster Kinekor 105 manager Grace Mtongerwa said she was happy with the turnout.
“I think the long wait was over after witnessing how many movie fanatics pitched up for the movie. We thought we would have many men and boys since the movie is much more to do with cars, but we had a gender balance,” she said.
She said the movie is now showing in cinemas.
“After the première, the movie is now in cinemas and fans can still come and watch it. Our première coincided with other African countries that had the same event,” she said.
The movie stars Vin Diesel, the late Paul Walker and Dwayne Johnson leading the returning cast of “Fast & Furious 7”, such as Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges ‘Ludacris’, Elsa Pataky and Lucas Black.
It was directed by James Wan.
They are joined by international action stars new to the franchise including Jason Statham, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey and Kurt Russell.
Neal H. Moritz, Diesel and Michael Fottrell produced the movie written by Chris Morgan.
Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), the bad boy from the last edition who was hospitalised at the beginning of the movie, his brother Deckard (Statham) is irked that Dom (Diesel), Brian (Paul Walker) and the gang wanted to kill him.
It was do or die for the team, as they played a cat and mouse game in Azerbaijan to Abu Dhabi and United States.
Old time favourites, Kurt Russell joins as a black-ops government suit using the “family” to secure a next-level GPS device created by hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel).
One would think it is now on hardcore game of guns, forgetting it is all about cars.
The stunts are too much considering we are in the 3D era.
When cars rolling backwards out of a plane to parachute past massive trees and land on the side of a mountain is the least interesting part of a scene, you know things are off the chain.
Vehicles will plunge from ridiculous heights, plough into each other head-on, and, yes, fly.
The best part was when Diesel and Walker had to jump from three buildings one after the other in Dubai.
But it would be myopic not to talk about the hilarious Ludacris and Tyrese.
The duo is comedy gold, giving the movie time to breathe — all the more important in the wake of Walker’s loss.
Again the franchise works despite losing Paul Walker. Walker’s death during the middle of filming naturally threw the movie into a tailspin.
The fact that production was delayed as rewrites took place, we salute the director as he figured out on how to continue without Walker.
The creative solution was to use as much of Walker’s footage as possible from previous franchise and some voice recordings from Walker’s brothers.
The result is nearly seamless with the movie’s structure solid, Walker is very much present and it’s extremely difficult to tell where the cutting and pasting begin.
The ending was a send-off for Walker as the movie’s emotion centred on him.
There is a wrenching scene in which Walker tells Mia that if anything happens to him, she has to go on without him.
The weight of the moment hits the audience, but it doesn’t bring the movie down.
On the contrary, “Furious 7” works hard to make experience of Brian as light-hearted and fulfilling as possible.
The way it tips its hat to him is touching and respectful.
Seeing old pictures of Walker and Diesel looking so very young is almost like watching the Mary-Kate and Ashely Olsen twins grow up.
Online Reporter