REVIEW 43
SUNDAY APRIL 5 2015
VERDICT: THRILLS, SPILLS AND A TOUCHING FAREWELL
Enjoy the ride but ignore plot
The late Paul Walker stars
in Fast & Furious 7. The
actor died in a car
accident during shooting
of the latest and last
instalment of the movies
FAST & FURIOUS 7
137 minutes (M)
Director: James Wan (Saw)
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker,
Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez,
Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell
Reviewer: Leigh Paatsch
**½
YOU can safely take your time
looking for a park outside before you park yourself in front
of Fast & Furious 7.
The first half-hour is as
hackneyed as this fuel-injected
franchise has ever been.
The opening act doesn’t
quite blow as hard as anything
that transpired in the series
nadir Tokyo Drift, but it does
go worryingly close.
There stands Vin Diesel,
haltingly forming sentences in
that faraway-fart-in-an-abandoned-mineshaft voice of his,
gruffly greeting all current
members of the F&F team, and
saying seemingly random stuff
about “family”.
Once all the unnecessary
reminders of who’s who in the
F&F zoo are done with, the
movie swiftly begins earning
its keep in undeniably spectacular fashion.
The later F&F sequels have
paid their way by pinning
everything on audaciously ridiculous and irresistibly adrenalised set-piece stunt sequences.
Two of these stand-alone
scenes lodged right in the middle of Fast & Furious 7 are
nothing less than masterpieces
of modern action filmmaking.
The first takes place in the
skies over Eastern Europe,
where the F&F team reverse
their vehicles out of an aircraft
carrier cruising at high altitude
and proceed to parachute their
rides smoothly on to a winding
mountain pass.
Once on terra firma, the
ante is upped even further with
a frenetic extended chase on
and off the road. Somehow this
sequence also incorporates
next-gen parkour and oldschool fist-fights without any
driver touching the brakes.
The
second
must-see
stretch of Fast & Furious 7 features an expensive sports car
travelling through the upper
storeys of three glassy skyscrapers in Dubai.
All laws of velocity, geometry and air-traffic control
are so flagrantly disobeyed,
you just won’t be able to wipe
the dopey grin off your face.
Let’s not bother addressing
the story here. The screenwriters clearly didn’t, so why
should we?
All that needs to be known is
a rogue assassin is on the loose
and out to terminally throttle
Dom Toretto (Diesel) and his
feet-to-the-floor friends.
This villain is played as a
three-way collision between
the Terminator, Hannibal Lecter and the entire cast of The
Expendables by the one and
only Jason Statham.
Veteran
man-of-action
Kurt Russell racks up some
solid points as a wise-cracking
government agent known as
Mr Nobody.
While Dwayne Johnson is
used relatively sparingly as
Toretto’s frenemy-turned-actual-buddy Hobbs, he saves
the day for the non-stunt sections of Fast and Furious 7 on
several occasions.
The film ends on an uncharacteristically sombre, yet
truly heartfelt note with an
epilogue touchingly saluting
the contribution of franchise
stalwart Paul Walker, who
passed away in tragic circumstances before shooting was
completed last year.
VERDICT: SOAKING UP LOADS OF SPONGEBOB
All-new nemesis amid the familiar fare
THE SPONGEBOB
MOVIE: SPONGE
OUT OF WATER
92 minutes (PG)
Director: Paul Tibbitt (feature
debut)
Starring: Antonio Banderas and the
voices of Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Matt Berry
Reviewer: Leigh Paatsch
**½
FOR those coming late to the
whole SpongeBob SquarePants thing, here’s the necessary catch-up intel.
He’s been a surreal staple of
children’s TV programming
since the late 1990s: a serenely
silly, nicotine-yellow talking
kitchen-sponge who works as
a short-order cook at a fastfood restaurant located on the
ocean floor.
For those who are aware of
the
whole
SpongeBob
SquarePants thing, well, you’re
probably just as surprised as
me that he is still a thing at all.
V1 - NTNE01Z01MA
NOW SHOWING
Especially when it comes to
warranting a belated bigscreen sequel to his so-sowith-the-ha-ha 2004 bigscreen debut The SpongeBob
SquarePants Movie.
Nevertheless, here we all
are, and there he is in downtown Bikini Bottom, still a corporate slave to the capitalist
chicanery of Krabby Patty
burger tycoon Mr Krabs.
The movie barrels along in a
familiarly frenetic gear until
the final act, where SpongeBob, Plankton, Squidward,
Sandy the squirrel and poor
old Patrick the starfish are catapulted in the real world to
confront an all-new nemesis –
a live-action landlubber, Burger-Beard, (played by Antonio
Banderas), and he too has
plans to cash in on the cravings
caused by a Krabby Patty.
This busy, enjoyably nonsensical affair pings all over the
screen in all directions, and
goes well enough as mindless,
message-free entertainment
for little’uns.
However it just feels like a
lot of SpongeBob episodes
strung together.
CASUARINA
HOME (PG) ■ CC AD
3D SUN - WED
2D SUN - WED
1.50PM
10.15, 11.25AM
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: SPONGE
OUT OF WATER (PG) ● ■
3D SUN - WED
2D SUN - WED
11.50AM
9.30, 1.40PM
FAST AND FURIOUS 7 (M) ●
9.30, 12.25, 2.20, 3.25, 4.35, 5.30, 6.25,
7.40, 8.30, 9.25PM
SUN - WED
CITY
FAST AND FURIOUS 7 (M) ●
SUN - WED
9.20PM
10.00, 12.50, 2.00, 3.40, 5.30, 6.30, 8.30,
CINDERELLA (G) ● ■
9.50, 12.20, 2.05, 4.40, 7.10, 8.55PM
9.50, 12.20, 2.05, 4.35, 8.55PM
SUN - TUE
WED
DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHY! (CTC) ✖
SUN - WED
8.55 PM
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2.20, 4.10, 6.35PM
TINKERBELL: LEGEND OF THE
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WED
SHAUN THE SHEEP (G) ■
7.00 PM
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SUN - WED
2.55, 5.10, 7.25, 9.40 PM
INSURGENT (M)
SUN - WED
3.55, 6.25, 9.35 PM
SUN - WED
9.50, 11.40AM
THE BOOK OF LIFE (PG) ■
SUN - WED
9.40, 12.00PM
CINDERELLA (G) ● ■
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE (MA15+)
SUN - WED
SUN - WED
10.10, 12.30, 2.15, 4.50, 7.15, 9.10PM
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: SPONGE
OUT OF WATER (PG) ● ■
SUN - WED
10.05, 12.10PM
A LITTLE CHAOS (M)
INSURGENT (M)
SUN - WED
SUN - WED
10.20, 3.00, 6.55PM
THE DUFF (M) CC AD
11.15, 9.40PM
3.45, 9.30PM
FOCUS (MA15+)
SUN - WED
4.40 PM
THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD
HOTEL (PG) SUN - WED 1.10, 6.45 PM
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