Furious 7

Furious 7 (2015) is the seventh film in the series but occupies its own place in film history, for reasons outside the film. Paul Walker was killed in a car crash in November 2013 while production was under way. The accident had nothing to do with the shoot; it happened elsewhere and he was a passenger. Half the film had been made. Production stopped and the script was rewritten. His brothers Caleb and Cody stood in for his remaining scenes and his face was added digitally. The character was not killed off but written out: Brian retires and stays with his family. That is why the ending does not belong to the same genre as the rest. The action stops, two cars come to a fork in the road, and the film says goodbye to the actor rather than the character. See You Again was written for that scene. The rest is the series as we know it: cars dropped from planes, jumps between skyscrapers, physics abandoned entirely. James Wan came from horror and shoots the action closer in. It was the series' highest grossing entry at the time, and part of that had to do with the farewell itself. It runs 138 minutes. Good for: action, followers of the series, and large scale spectacle. Less good for: newcomers will miss the connections, it does not reward looking for logic, and the ending may be heavy because it rests on a real death.