James Wan is a director capable of such varied work that it's hard to know whether or not you're a fan. He was the guy behind the first (and best) Saw movie, sure, but he's also the person partly responsible for birthing that increasingly terrible - a never-ending - franchise in the first place. And movies like Death Silence and Death Sentence are plainly terrible, whilst later horror efforts such as Insidious and The Conjuring are actually enjoyable. And though he has managed to steer clear of sequels for much of his career, Wan did go down the Insidious 2 route in 2013 to negative results. It looked like he was set for more mediocrity, and then... well, along came Furious 7, that's what. And it's hard to be mad at the person who pulled off Furious 7, because that could not have been an easy task - especially in the wake of Paul Walker's untimely death, halfway through shooting. Whatever you thought of Wan before Furious 7, then, it's clear that the movie works as an antidote to Insidious 2 (and those other Wan misfires). You can't hate on a movie like Furious 7, which knows exactly what it is and attempts to be nothing but the best version of that thing. Wan managed to inject a brilliant sense of kinetic energy into an already energetic franchise, and handled the death of Walker with respect and careful precision. It was a bittersweet moment, given the circumstances, but Wan - who was yet to helm a proper blockbuster before his work on this - proved himself as a large-scale filmmaker.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.