Shall we cancel the filming of it or not? That was the question Universal was faced with after Paul Walker was tragically killed in a car accident in November 2013.At the time he had completed nearly half of the film and considering he was second billing Universal could have been forgiven for dumping the project. If they did, I certainly would not have had the privilege to do this film review which as it turns out would have been a missed opportunity. However, after speaking with director James Wan and consulting with various special effects companies whom to this date remain unknown, Universal decided the film should proceed and the rest as they say is history.

A script re-write was in order to account for absences of Walker's character - Brian which was necessary if the film had any chance at all. The end result? This film reviewer can report was a high octane action pumping (at times makes James Bond look like a whimp) 137 mins of escapism. This reviewer had not seen any of the other F & F films and so I was unsure if I could come into this one 6 films on and catch on. I was pleasantly surprised, you can see this film as a stand-alone and come away enjoying it. Yes there are one or two parts that might hark back to the other films but overall the film stands up on its own. The other point I will make is this film reviewer is not a car loving 'petrol head' thus I was equally concerned before going into the film that I might be bored looking at drag racing and burn outs for 50% of the film. I was pleasantly surprised that was not the case. Jason Statham as the villain is perfect as always. His martial arts scenes are well choreographed and he has the bad ass vengeful attitude down pat.

Kurt Russell makes an appearance as 'Mr Nobody' - a government agent and puts in a typically good performance. This role was originally going to go to Denzel Washington however this was not to be the case. Dwayne The Rock Johnson does not have a big role but his comic timing adds a nice touch to the film. The rest of the cast play their characters and nothing is really outstanding as they know their characters so well - they have been doing it for 7 films now. The locations of this film are stunning - Abu Dhabi, Canada and the USA. There appears to be one continuity error in a scene in Dhabi (Spoiler) - how the rest of the group get down from the building without getting captured. However if you overlook this the ride continues - NON-STOP. This film will not win any awards and the acting at times is wooden but, it is a lot of fun and the action is amazing and at times defies gravity. This film is a fitting tribute to Paul Walker who was himself an action guy, he loved cars, the outdoors and friends and family. At the end of the movie, there was silence as the crowd appreciated this was his last film, I even heard a faint cry.