“Furious 7″ Reviewed: You Will Not Cry As Much As They Tell You

I choked up once. I didn't cry. They told me the Paul Walker thing was going to make you cry. I even went into the bathroom before and borrowed some TP. I was ready. I'll try to sound intelligent and not spoil too much with this review.

The whole not-crying thing wasn't the only bait-and-switch. They made us believe the Jason Statham character was gaining revenge for the death of his brother in "Fast 6". That wasn't true. They brought Lucas Black back from "Tokyo Drift" but he got one original scene, unless that was something off the cutting floor from years ago, in which case he wasn't actually in the new movie. They made us believe Brian O'Connor was leaving, like he was quitting for Mia and his children. I thought killing off the character would have made whoever did it the most-over bad guy since Darth Vader, or he could have died as a sacrifice like Bruce Willis in "Armageddon".

I will admit I was obsessed with trying to pinpoint the spot where Paul Walker was done filming, meaning at what point did the movie get to before he died. I will say director James Wan and the special-effects team did a tremendous job; if I had never know Paul Walker died I would have thought it was him the entire time.

That obsession -- and maybe the fact that there's so many mind-numbing stunts in these movies that my mind was numb -- caused me to not focus as much on the skydiving cars, the car jumping through multiple skyscrapers, and Brian's bushopping and more on the characters. With good characters you'll follow them through the boring as well as the ridiculous.

They've really transformed the "family" (as Dom calls them) from outlaw ne'er-do-well gearheads into government operatives over the last two movies. It's almost like Vin Diesel in "XXX". The crew was a lot smaller this time around. They didn't bring anyone back from "Fast Five" (or even Black) to replace Han and Gisele. Hobbs and Mia were indisposed. They did add a new character (Nathalie Emmanuel who's in "Game Of Thrones" as a smoking-hot computer nerd, and they thankfully included an extended bikini scene to verify it) that will surely be with the crew moving forward, and bet the house they milk the Tej-Roman-Ramsey love triangle potential moving forward. It reeks of Han-Luke-Leia in the original "Star Wars" trilogy before we learned Luke and Leia were related.

There's no racing for pinks, or cops to avoid, or scams to pull, like in the past. They are given endless resources this time around by Kurt Russell, who works for the government agency more secretive than the CIA that you only see in movies and TV, and Kurt promises them they can fend off Jason Statham (who ends up everywhere Dom is with "Terminator 2" T-1000 efficiency) by gaining a piece of technology called "God's Eye", which they can only get by rescuing Ramsey the smoking-hot hacker from a completely unrelated set of bad people.

And they needed this "God's Eye", let me tell you. When they referred to Jason Statham as an "English badass" they meant it. He trashed the hospital his brother was in. He destroyed Hobbs' office and had him laid up in the hospital. He blew up the Toretto house and sent Mia into hiding. He played chicken with Dom twice.

Of course they got God's Eye, but then Statham joined forces with the other bad guys (the chief one played by Djimon Hounsou) who proceed to trash Los Angeles trying to kill the family. Hobbs breaks out of the hospital, replying "Woman I am the calvary", and does what he does best (which is being "The Rock" laying the smack down on candy asses, whatever character he is he's always in Rock Mode).

We learned more about Hobbs, we learned more about Dom and Letty (which was the only time it got dusty in the theater), and we learned that revealing something you remember will save your life when CPR doesn't.

Statham wasn't killed off, so you can assume he'll be back for "Furious 8". Same with Kurt Russell, same with Ramsey. They may just have a colossal rematch the next time around.

I won't cry then either.

Oh, and Iggy Azalea had a cameo. You could tell this was before she had plastic surgery done too.

3 stars. Go watch it. I may have to go again.