YMMV / Furious 7

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• Alternate Character Interpretation: Was the alliance between Deckard Shaw and Jakande genuine, like the narrative somehow implies in contrast with the "not friends, but family" relationships among Dom's team, or it was merely business? If it was a true Villainous Friendship, then Jakande firing the missiles against Dom and Deckard at seeing that Shaw was gonna be captured would take a new sense as opposed to a simple opportunistic backstab, considering that Deckard would have to go through a really, really hard life experience if a government put its hands on him.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Deckard manages to be this multiple times in one movie. After the intro sets him up as a dangerous One-Man Army, he comes to target each of Dom's friends, starting with Hobbs and Han, and the film hypes him up as being a dangerous Hero Killer and terrifying monster who can only possibly be caught if Dom and co first acquire God's Eye. However, each time he attacks Dom and co, he gets his ass handed to him, acting more like a casual annoyance than a genuine threat, and the only reason he's even a problem is he attacks while they're otherwise busy. Even his fight with Hobbs that leaves the latter in hospital, Hobbs is dominating the fight until he has to use himself as a shield to protect Elena from a conveniently placed explosive, and his climatic fight with Dom is similarly very clearly in Dom's favour.
• Ass Pull: It's brief, but amusing, that while Ramsey is cold-reading every member of the team's roles and skill, she identifies Brian as a cop by how he took down Jakande's mooks during the chase. This is in spite she never saw Brian fight during the chase, because she had a bag over her head (and was in a closed cell) and when it got removed she was quickly thrown from the bus and taken away before the fighting resumed.
• Award Snub: Despite feats such as peaking at #1 at the Billboard Top 100 after starting at #100 in only five weeks, breaking a record that had stood since 1959, being nominated for a Golden Globe and then winning a Critics Choice Award, "See You Again" was not nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
• Awesome Music: "See You Again", which is a Tear Jerker if ever there was one.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: All Kurt Russell has to do to is show up as a mysterious sunglasses-wearing government agent named Mr. Nobody and he still basically steals the entire movie.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: $353 million in the US is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but Furious 7 made over $1 billion across the rest of the world, good enough to make it the fourth-highest grossing movie ever at the time (it quickly dropped two spots to #6 later that same year). The biggest market for the movie was China, where it quickly became the highest grossing foreign film at the time earning the equivalent of $390 million.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • A scene, leaked just a few hours before Paul Walker's death had Brian and Roman attending Han's funeral. Roman says that he doesn't want any more funerals, where Brian says that there will be 'just one more'. In the context of the situation, the character was referring to the film's villain, yet it is still very chilling, especially with such a small time gap between the scene being leaked and the actor's untimely death.
  • Ronda Rousey's fight scene was carefully written not to make her look bad, as she had at the time an undefeated record, was the UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, the most popular female MMA fighter in the world, and even a potential WWE high-level prospect (and indeed, she did end up becoming a WWE wrestler). Mere months after the release of the film, she lost her championship to Holly Holm and her MMA career never recovered.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When How Did This Get Made? covered the film live in 2015, there were some pretty prescient suggestions made for the next film, such as Charlize Theron joining the cast, and an audience member suggestion that Helen Mirren play the mother of the Shaw Brothers — both of which actually happened.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A lot of people saw the film simply to see how Paul Walker's role and sendoff would be handled. His last scene wound up being by far the most acclaimed moment in the entire series, with even people who hate these movies praising it.
• Les Yay: Take the way the race-starter girl (played by model/Internet celebrity Levy Tran) is acting towards Letty.
• Magnificent Bastard: Deckard Shaw is a former MI6 agent turned international criminal who taught his younger brother, Owen, everything he needed to know. Vowing vengeance on Dominic Torreto and his crew for putting Owen in a coma, Deckard would gather the information of his whereabouts before attacking them one by one; Deckard’s first target was Han Seoul-Oh whom he kills in Tokyo and made it appear as a car accident while also sending a bomb to Dom’s home. Making himself known to Dom at Han’s funeral he lures Dom to a secluded area preparing to kill him before Frank "Mr. Nobody" Petty rescues Dom. Learning that Mr. Nobody tasked Dom and his crew to steal the hacking device God’s Eye from Mose Jakande, Deckard would ally with the terrorist and orchestrate an ambush for Dom and Mr. Nobody while retrieving God's eye back for Jakande. Eventually locked up in a highly secured prison, Deckard would break out and work with Luke Hobbs and Dom’s crew to capture a rogue Dom, while revealing to be collaborating with Owen into securing Dom’s freedom from Cipher’s control. Working with Hobbs again to stop the super-virus "Snowflake" from being unleashed, Deckard with Hobbs sneak into Brixton’s hideout to retrieve the device needed to extract the virus from Deckard’s sister Hattie and find a way to defeat the super-powered Brixton Lore in combat, cementing Deckard Shaw as one of the most cunning yet morally complex characters in the franchise.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • In an example of Black Comedy, shortly after Paul Walker's death and before the promo materials were officially released, many people online edited captions about "leaked Furious 7 set photos" onto pictures of souped-up looking hearses.
  • "See You Again" has already become a staple song for memorializing someone who has passed away much in the vein of "Amazing Grace" or "I'll Be Missing You". For example, it was used in a meme paying tribute to Glenn Rhee on The Walking Dead when it appeared he had died in Season 6, or more comically, in at least one Vine memorializing Harambe the gorilla in summer 2016.
  • Similarly to the "See You Again" example above, the final scene of Dom and Brian parting ways spawned various memes and parodies, with various people or things replacing Dom and Brian.
  • Hobbs's phrase before breaking out of his arm cast, "Daddy's gotta go to work," has also seen a lot of mileage.
• Narm:
  • An emotionally-charged climactic scene is somewhat marred by the reveal in a flashback that Dom wore his standard white wifebeater shirt during his wedding ceremony with Letty (who is dressed up nicely).
  • Ronda Rousey might get a badass fighting scene in the film, but many agree that when it came for her to say actual dialogue and act that she had a bad case of Dull Surprise.
  • The long build-up to revealing Ramsey's face, which likely gets some fans' hopes up that it's going to be a surprise return of some previous character in the series, instead is just setting up a ridiculously outdated Samus Is a Girl reveal, like it's supposed to be some kind of gasp-worthy twist.
  • The pointless slow motion in Jakande's introduction. It really comes off like they were worried no one would get attached to him as a villain with Jason Statham around and our first look at him needed some extra oomph to make sure he had some impact.
  • Speaking of Jakande, it's also the fact that his character crams up so many modern action film villain archetypes at once. He's a terrorist, who is also a private military contractor, who has also vibes of being an African warlord, who wants to gets his hands on a Echelon-like device, who is also later revealed to work for a global anarchist. By this point, it becomes giggle-worthy for how it makes the Commie Nazis trope look tame.
• Narm Charm:
  • During the climax, Hobbs is laid up in the hospital in a cast, but decides to leave to help the crew. He breaks off the cast by flexing his muscles, complete with a one-liner to his daughter. "Daddy's gotta go to work."
  • Due to Paul Walker's death, Brian is pretty Out of Focus here, which causes the final scene to come quite out of nowhere. Still, the real life circumstance of it make it quite touching regardless.
• One-Scene Wonder: The little over one minute scene with Mando was certainly one for those who are huge fans of his actor, self-proclaimed bachata king Romeo Santos.
• Signature Scene: Dom and Brian's one last cruise until they parted away in the final shot.
• Signature Song: Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again" is far and away the most popular and most successful song to have ever been featured in the series.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Two things were found in the wreckage of Han's car. A silver cross (thrown in by Deckard Shaw) and a picture of Gisele. Han never truly managed to move on.
  • Dom heading to Tokyo to find out who killed Han.
    Dom: Tell Brian I'll be back in two days.
    Mia: Where are you going?
    Dom: Tokyo. I'm bringing Han home.
  • The ending of the film, a beautiful tribute to Paul Walker, made even more heartwrenching when you realize all the double meanings of what the gang says at the beach and Dom later on. The whole scene accompanied by the song "See You Again." in the background.
  • Dom's monologue at the very end. Makes you wonder if Vin Diesel is saying it as Dom, or as himself.
    Dom: I used to say I live my life a quarter mile at a time, and I think that's why we were brothers. Because you did, too. No matter where you are, whether it's a quarter mile away.... or halfway across the world... You'll always be with me... And you'll always be my brother.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Deckard Shaw, played by a certified badass Jason Statham in his most Playing Against Type role yet, seems to be kind of a let down. Yes, he has his badassery moments like tearing down half of a hospital just to see his brother, injuring Hobbs and killing Han and making it to look like an accident, all before going after Dom's crew. But after Mose Jakande, the movie's other Big Bad shows up, he gets sidelined into showing up for a couple scenes during each conflict Dom's crew got themselves into, and the last act ultimately turns out to be mainly about Jakande's mercenaries, with Deckard just going after Dom and him alone without caring that his other friends are also equally responsible for crippling his brother. Sure, he gets his chance to shine in the movie, but after all that build up in the trailers as the ultimate badass out for Dom's crew's blood, seeing him got sidelined by Jakande, who doesn't even show up in any trailer, may put off some viewers. At least at the end of the movie Deckard is still alive, while Jakande isn't, paving the way for him and his brother to return in the sequel and even redeem themselves.
  • Hobbs rides the line on this trope, going somewhat Out of Focus for a large chunk of the film. His contributions are still awesome and vital enough to justify his high billing, though.
  • In a meta sense, the fact that "See You Again" lack any contributions from Tyrese Gibson and/or Ludacris, two actors who are also significant musicians and have been with the series since 2 Fast 2 Furious.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This would have been the perfect time to tie Better Luck Tomorrow into the main series and strengthen Tokyo Drift's connection to the rest of the series, but the events of Tokyo Drift barely get a mention and nothing in Better Luck Tomorrow is referenced. This might be accounted for by two changes in direction: Justin Lin not being on board, and of course, Paul.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The CGI recreation of the late Paul Walker, portrayed by his brothers Caleb and Cody Walker, is actually quite good.

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