FURIOUS 7 (Rated PG-13)

There’s not much to say to the uninitiated about “The Fast and the Furious,” now that the series is entering its last chapter, at least one starring Paul Walker, in “Furious 7.”

At this point, nearly 15 years after the first film, it’s hard to imagine anyone not familiar with the action juggernaut that is the wildly successful “Furious” franchise, where fast cars and high-octane action collide.

Under the charismatic leadership of Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto and Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner, the gang that loves to race in turbo-charged muscle cars is taking it to the limit this time, with one grand stunt involving parachuting their fast wheels out of a cargo plane.

“Furious 7” picks up where the last installment left off, with Dom and Brian returning to the States with pardons in hand for helping Dwayne Johnson’s FBI agent Hobbs on an overseas mission.

Trying to acclimate to domestic life in Los Angeles is difficult, particularly for Brian, now that he has a child with Dom’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster).

Driving a minivan with his young son is not Brian’s idea of a challenge, though he’s a somewhat nervous father.

Trouble comes looking for the gang when the ruthless Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) decides to kill everyone involved with the death of his brother Owen (Luke Evans), the villain in the previous “Furious” film.

Deckard gets the drop on Hobbs, putting him in the hospital, but the tenacious agent won’t be down for long.

The gang, including the amnesiac Letty (Michelle Rodgriguez) and tech-whiz cohorts Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson), get wrapped up in a ludicrous plot of battling a high-tech terrorist (Djimon Hounsou) and his martial-arts henchman Kiet (Tony Jaa).

Significant plotting and sharp dialogue are expendable in a “Furious” film, and even more so here when the gang ends up making a deal with shadowy government operative Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) to retrieve a surveillance gadget called God’s Eye, which will make it easier to find Deckard Shaw.

The plan is for Dom and Brian, with the help of their gearhead crew, to track down the terrorist cell in Azerbaijan and rescue expert computer hacker Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), who invented the dangerous software program that can track anyone and anything everywhere in the world.

“Furious 7” is an orgy of fact-paced action and exhilarating stunts, with the parachuting of chase vehicles from a cargo plane being rivaled by the absolutely stunning flying jump of a prized and extremely rare W Motors Lykan HyperSport from one high-rise tower into another in Abu Dhabi.

It’s not just cars that are flying in “Furious 7;” so are fists. Bare-knuckle fights between Dom and Deckard are essential to the action, and with Jason Statham in fine form as a super-villain, one could only expect that he would engage in such display of machismo.

Fittingly, “Furious 7” is a tribute to the late Paul Walker, who died prior to the completion of filming. His best scene involves balancing on an overturned bus that’s about to fall off a cliff, from which he manages to jump in time to catch the spoiler on Letty’s Plymouth Barracuda.

With the very unfortunate and untimely death of Paul Walker, one would think the “Furious” franchise has come to an appropriate end. Only time will tell, but my guess is that an enterprise this lucrative may well continue.

THE LONGEST RIDE (PG-13)

Not even Clint Eastwood’s spitting-image son Scott can make a dent in the “Furious 7” onslaught at the box office.

The audience for “The Longest Ride,” the latest film version of a Nicholas Sparks novel, is no match for the crowd yearning to glimpse Paul Walker for one last ride.

Still, though arguably this is not the best venue for him, the cowboy-hat wearing Scott Eastwood, whose chiseled good looks are reminiscent of a young Clint from “Rawhide” days, has the masculine sex appeal to be a breakout star in his own right.

In the setting of rural North Carolina, Eastwood’s Luke Collins works the family ranch to help support his mom (Lolita Davidovich), but his passion is competitive bull-riding, a dangerous sport that caused him serious injury.

Getting back in the ring to ride bucking bulls, Luke’s entry in a local competition draws notice from comely college co-ed Sophia (Britt Robertson), and they meet cute when Luke tosses her his black cowboy hat as a souvenir.

This being a film inspired by Nicholas Sparks, “The Longest Ride” is all about romance. In true fashion, common to Sparks’ work, there has to be a parallel romantic story, and it comes when Luke and Sophia, on a first date, rescue an old man from a car wreck.

The old man is Ira Levinson (Alan Alda), and boy, does he have a love story to tell, one that dates back to World War II days when he meets Ruth (Oona Chaplin), a refugee from Austria. The younger Ira is played by Jack Huston, and of course, the film is full of flashbacks.

“The Longest Ride” is predictable fare, but it benefits from the presence of rising young talent in Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson, but the true romantic sparks come from Oona Chaplin and Jack Huston/Alan Alda.
  
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.