Furious 7 (2015)

The most knowingly ridiculous action movie franchise of all time reaches its seventh instalment with Furious 7. It is such an over-the-top affair that it has effectively rendered itself critic-proof. What is there to criticise? You could remark upon how unbelievable the stunts are, or what a nonsense the plot is, or how there is not a single realistic character in the bunch, but to do so would be pointless because the filmmakers already know. These are films that embrace and encourage their own silliness. Without question Furious 7 is the silliest of the bunch.

Following the defeat of Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), who has been left in a coma, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his gang are targeted for reprisals by Owen's much more dangerous brother Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). To track down Deckard and challenge him head-on, Dom agrees to work with "Mr Nobody" (Kurt Russell) - a US government representative who needs to rescue a talented hacker from an African terrorist in order to secure the world's greatest-ever surveillance system. The chase takes Dom's team from Los Angeles to Azebaijan to Abu Dhabi and back to Los Angeles for an explosive chase through the city streets. The simpler plot synopsis would read: "A string of random nonsense allows Dom and his team to drive cars very fast, shoot people, and blow things up for 137 minutes."

Furious Six (2013)

It seems that, by the release of Furious Six in 2013, the Fast and the Furious saga had slipped into a rather comfortable routine: a new film every two years, pushing forward the increasingly soap opera-like narrative each time and also pushing the franchise further and further across sub-genre borders. Not content with their shift from street racing movies to heist flicks, the makers of The Fast and the Furious now expanded their repertoire to include international espionage as well.

Federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) needs help tracking down and apprehending the criminal and terrorist Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). To achieve this goal he enlists retired international robber Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), with the promise of a full pardon - not to mention the chance to reunite with Lette Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom's lover who is supposed to be long dead. Cue the entire team getting back together, including ex-FBI agent Brian (Paul Walker), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Han (Sung Kang), Gisele (Gal Gadot) and Tej (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges).

Fast Five (2011)

If Fast & Furious represented an unexpected jump in quality from the original The Fast and the Furious, then Fast Five represents an unexpected jump again: this is a tremendously fun movie packed with appealing actors, entertaining action scenes and ridiculous over-the-top stunts. In many respects it's critic-proof: sure the characters may lack realism and often depth, but they do what they're designed to do and they do it in the fastest, most destructive way imaginable. It really is one of those cases where finding the film wanting is likely due to coming to it with the wrong expectations, rather than any fault in Justin Lin's film itself.

After breaking Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) from a prison transport, former FBI agent Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) and Dom's sister Mia (Jordana Brewster) now join him on the run in South America. While holed up in Rio they take a robbery job to get some badly-needed cash, only to wind up lied to and betrayed by the city's most powerful gangster. While they plan their revenge against him - not to mention the biggest robbery of their lives - they also find themselves hunted down by a US federal agent (Dwayne Johnson) sent to capture them.

Fast & Furious (2009)

The Fast and the Furious was a weak action film that broadly plagiarised Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break by simply replacing surfboards with cars and Patrick Swayze with Vin Diesel. It was a moderate hit back in 2001, and its success led to an even less accomplished sequel: 2 Fast 2 Furious. That film kept co-star Paul Walker but lost Diesel. The third film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, pretty much lost everything bar the basic concept of illegal street racing. That's the point at which I tapped out, and left the franchise to do its thing without me.

Then I started hearing genuinely surprising things about the subsequent movies: that the unexpected fourth film, that reunited Walker and Diesel, was actually pretty good, and that from the fifth film onwards it had somehow metamorphosed into one of Hollywood's most entertaining action franchises. Given the fairly lacklustre experience of the first three films I was never in a particular hurry to find out if this buzz was accurate, but with the runaway box office performance of Fast & Furious 7 I finally decided to rent the previous three films and check them out for myself.