It took about two-thirds of Furious 7 before I said to myself, “where the fuck has The Rock been?” That’s how well Furious 7 works.

Furious 7 has less Dwayne Johnson than Wrestlemania 31… but y’know, IT’S OKAY. Because Furious 7 also has some car vehicle plow through three Abu Dhabi condo towers and that may, just maybe, make it to the top 10 reasons why Furious 7 is really good and better than the overstuffed Fast and Furious 6.

Furious 7 Review

Furious 7 wins with details. While Furious 7 keeps easy company with other maximalist treasures like Bad Boys 2 and Transformers: Age of Extinction, it elevates itself with care. Michael Bay hopes that his big pictures will bludgeon you into a state of adrenal entertainment (and it sometimes works), but new director James Wan and Furious 7 make every punch feel exacting. This whole page could be a list of neat-o Furious 7 details, but here are some of the sticky ones:

• A red dress hem flaps like a cape to one side of the frame, surviving the scene transition and lingering over the next shot.
• Corona bucket. You’ll know the one.
• Paul Walker driving a mini-van and getting hit on by teachers.
• Someone puts on a helmet… for safety.
• The Rock dragging wires and loose wreckage from the back of his minigun.

With the Fast and Furious series changing hands from Justin Lin (now in charge of Star Trek) to horror movie director James Wan (The Conjuring, Saw), it was reasonable to expect some changes. But Wan is just as good at that Furious action. Instead the differences are in emphasis. Furious 7 loves butts, martial arts fights, hyper camera (swoopin’, flippin’, whoosh transitionin’), and explosions.

Furious 7 Violence

Explosions are beautiful in Furious 7. Black smoke, shattered wood, and crunched cars are soooo sexy in Furious 7. But there’s none of this wink-winky everything explodes nonsense. One moment of small gratification comes when a bus tumbles off a cliff and smotes itself upon the mountainside like a Balrog, all along failing to explode.

The only thing Furious 7 doesn’t give a honk about is cars. Don’t worry, Furious 7 has lots of cars. But Justin Lin lingered, whereas Furious 7 director James Wan always cuts away quick, just before things get pornographic. The way Fast Five and Fast And Furious 6 cameras slobbered over cars could make a bike messenger swoon, but Furious 7 mostly just throws ‘em on screen.

Except when it comes to vehicular destruction. Furious 7 loves seeing shit get wrecked. And it’s not just cars either. Furious 7 has it out for people, opening on dozens of dead bodies and just getting more homicidal from there.

Wan’s horror movie instincts stab through the Furious 7 action in all sorts of fun ways. It’s kind of awesome, especially when people and car destruction get their due. In one nasty moment Furious 7 slams a tree trunk through a car windshield and spends the extra energy to assure us that a human was annihilated. And if there aren’t any people around to victimize then Furious 7 will just throw a Lykan HyperSport through a platoon of Terracotta Warriors. Details.

The Furious 7 Cast

More surprising than the somehow not-so-bad Rock deficit, is Vin Diesel. Dominic Toretto works in this one, mainly because Toretto’s authority makes sense. He’s no longer mumbly tank top filling. In Furious 7 Diesel has gone lunkhead guru, enlightening gawping ensemble Fast and Furious “family” members with philosophical “but is your red really my red… but I’m talking car colors here” one-liners. Dude comes back to life with an existential maxim (god bless Furious 7 for bringing back fake, arrhythmic CPR). To hear Toretto’s street fight aphorism in the Furious 7 climax is to discover a cult leader you respect despite his bullshit, because you know this dude isn’t using his powers to creep on members in the yoga studio after hours.

Toretto in Furious 7 has about the most photogenic death wish ever filmed. Sure, Fast and the Furious has become known for throwing people across vast gulfs to slam into inexplicably cushion-y car hoods. But in Furious 7 Vin Diesel drives off a cliff twice with no discernible plan in place. Hilariously, and unlike the showstopping Abu Dhabi jump, both cliff dives never find that mid-air plan you might expect. Nope, Dominic Toretto just throws himself off a cliff and walks away. The first game of chicken against Statham’s Deckard Shaw is just the beginning of the best Toretto in any Fast and the Furious movie.

As for the rest of the cast, Furious 7 doesn’t quite hit the ensemble sweet spot that Fast Five did. You better show up with some thawed out affection from earlier entries if you’re super determined to give a shit about Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster), or Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky). But rubbing Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Brian (Paul Walker) to a dull shine feels like accomplishment enough. Plus, Furious 7 knows exactly where it keeps its secret weapon holstered, drawing best straight man in the biz, Chris Ludacris Bridges, at all the right times.

The world thought it was so over Jason Statham’s whole Brit-soccer-hooligan-in-a-suit, permanent-Batman-voice thing, but Furious 7 gives us the Statham The Expendables sold half its premise upon. And he’s just the beginning of a Furious 7 bad guy cast that makes Fast and the Furious 6 look like Paddington (that’s not nothing… Nicole Kidman and Peter Capaldi are some poisonous shits in Paddington). Sure, Gina Carano, Joe Taslim, and Kim Kold are great, but Luke “whiny Dracula” Evans? Is this a villain or a last-minute underwear shoot that Orlando Bloom dropped out of so he could go get old? Furious 7 offers up Ronda Rousey, Djimon Hounsou, and Tony “Watch This Embedded Video Right Now” Jaa.

Furious 7 uses Tony Jaa to great effect, but the brutal match between Ronda Rousey and Michelle Rodriquez is even better. Any movie that can make Tony Jaa going full-blown parkour elbows on Paul Walker feel like the second-best action scene is delivering some good goods.

Furious 7 Drama

By this point Fast and the Furious means overblown melodrama, and, true to form, Furious 7 blasts earnest sentiment all over the place (true even if we set aside the Paul Walker tribute montage). The love bomb is so high megatonnage all-encompassing, that even Kurt Russell — sinister, secretive, Furious 7 Nick Furious — gets an emotional exit for no discernible reason. Dominic Toretto loves him, so Furious 7 loves him, and you can either get onboard for the group hug with the shadowy NSA operator or giiiiitttt out.

Furious 7 has an incomprehensible and very, very stupid plot. The Furious 7 climax is full of jaw-dropping moments, but is too spread out to deliver the same neck punch as the endless runway dust-up that capped Fast and Furious 6. No more Han sucks. The hacker character played by Nathalie Emmanuel gets nothing to do but stare at loading screens. And that’s about all that’s bad about Furious 7.

What’d you think of Furious 7?