‘Fast and Furious’ Films Ranked

It may sound counterintuitive to describe a movie with so much cacophonously chaotic smash-and-crash commotion as dull, but… Well, let’s just say that during the long stretches between the big blow-ups here, you’re painfully aware that time is passing and confusion is rampant. Given that the franchise long ago rocketed over entire flotillas of sharks, it’s hardly surprisingly that this new episode is swaggeringly absurd in its plotting as Dom (Vin Diesel) and just about every other character introduced in earlier films are targeted for grievous bodily harm by Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa), the vengeful son of the Brazilian crime lord killed way back in “Fast Five.” (Momoa is slipped into a revised snippet from that 2011 film, a trick that inadvertently backfires as it reminds us that we’ve never gotten a satisfactory explanation for the disappearance of the late Paul Walker’s character.) But the pervasive silliness only amps the annoyance factor in a “F&F” storyline even more indecipherably muddled and brazenly logic-free than usual. Not for first time in the franchise, we’re left with the impression that everyone simply made things up on a day-to-day basis during production, and left it up to the poor editors to sort things out. Turns out that the most impressive special effect is Momoa’s unabashedly entertaining over-the-top portrayal of a boisterously fey and uproariously twinkle-toed villain whose unbridled antics actually might make The Joker himself suggest: “Don’t you think you might want to dial it back a notch?” Momoa almost — almost! — distracts you from the tell-tale scratchy noise made by filmmakers who are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Roadside Attraction
Agency boss Aimes (Alan Richtson) provides an invaluable service to viewers — both long-time franchise fans and newbies — as the movie takes a pit stop long enough for him to bring new agent Tess (Brie Larson) up to speed regarding Team Dom’s activities, employing the high-tech equivalent of a Power Point lecture featuring highlights from earlier “F&F” movies. (“If it violates the laws of God and gravity,” Aimes observes, “they did it twice.”) It’s all for the benefit of those who tuned in late. Or who can’t quite remember what happened four or five films ago.

Show-Stopping Stunt
The mad chase after a humongous neutron bomb rolling through the streets of Rome goes on too long, like almost every action set piece in recent “F&F” flicks, but you can’t take your eyes off the screen as Dom and his crew cause massive amounts of spectacular collateral damage while their fast and furious pursuit is sporadically hampered by failures to communicate. An extra added attraction: Dante realizes where the bomb is headed and cracks: “The Vatican? OK, but you guys are going to hell.”

Best Line
“I’m gonna dig some graves.” — Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), announcing his intentions after he loads up on armaments and races off to save his Mum (Helen Mirren) from Dante’s minions, setting us up for a shootout that we’ll likely see in “Fast Eleven.” Or whatever the hell they call it.

Together again: Brian (Paul Walker), Dom (Vin Diesel), Mia (Jordana Brewster) and (fleetingly) Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) are reunited to get maximum mileage from a routine plot about another undercover mission to bring down yet another drug kingpin. (Han, played by Sung Kang, also pops up, briefly, the first sign that some sort of time-warp thing is going on after “Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”) This time, it’s personal: Dom agrees to help Brian — now working for the FBI — nab bad boy Arturo Braga (John Ortiz), who employs street racers to smuggle his product in from Mexico, because the villain had Letty killed. (Yeah, right.) The final scene suggests that the bus carrying Dom to a federal prison won’t reach its final destination.

Roadside Attraction
As Gisele Yashir, a sultry Braga underling who switches allegiances, Gal Gadot is so intent on vamping Dom in one scene that her behavior recalls what Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe had to say about the woman who tried to sit on his lap while he was standing up. Dom resists her advances — after all, he’s still mourning Letty at the time — leaving the wondrous woman unattached and available in the next episode for… Han.

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
The opening sequence, in which Dom, Letty and their cohorts try to hijack gas from moving fuel tankers, is a rousing recall of similarly risky heists in the first “Fast and Furious” film. But the high-speed dashes through underground tunnels beneath the U.S.-Mexican border are difficult to fully appreciate, primarily because, well, it’s so dark down there.

Best Line(s)
Gisele: “Are you one of those boys who prefers cars to women?” Dom: “I’m one of those boys who appreciates a fine body, regardless of the make.”

After severing his ties with LAPD by allowing Dom escape at the end of the first “Fast and Furious” movie, Brian pursues a profitable career in the exciting world of street racing. But he’s given a shot at redemption — and, better still, an opportunity to erase his criminal record — when he’s recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the outfit of Argentine drug lord Carter Verone (Cole Hauser). During his undercover enterprise, he’s aided by franchise newcomers Tyrese Gibson as Roman Pearce, a childhood friend (and ex-con) from the mean streets of Barstow, and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges as Tej Parker, a savvy street race organizer.

Roadside Attraction
Eva Mendes drops by for a cup of coffee as Monica Fuentes, a U.S. Customs Service agent who joins Brian under the covers. Brian winds up rescuing her from a vengeful Verone — but, as we’ll see in “Fast & Furious” (2009), his heart still belongs to Mia.

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
The confuse-the-cops rollout of decoy race cars is exciting and amusing, but it’s the scene where Brian lays a smackdown on a departing yacht with a souped-up Yenko Camaro that really provides high-octane catharsis.

Best Line
“I was in jail, Breh. I know how shitty the grub is on the inside. With the way things are shaping up here right now, it’ll be a matter of time before I’m back in there, or dead. So I’m trying to eat all I can, when I can. Plus, the doctor tells me I got a high metabolism.” — Roman, typically loquacious as he explains his epicurean idiosyncrasies.

For much of its running time, “Tokyo Drift” appears to be the “Halloween III” of the “Fast & Furious” series, a standalone entry with only a titular connection to other films in the franchise. The plot pivots on Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), a young American who is punished for his street-racing shenanigans by being shipped off to live with his Navy officer dad in Tokyo. Once there, he becomes involved in the local street-race culture, learning from underworld-connected car maven Han Lue (Sung Kang) how to successfully “drift” through hairpin turns during high-speed competitions. After Han is killed in an auto mishap — OK, pardon me a moment while I laugh — Sean soldiers on to defeat the vile Takashi (Brian Tee), nephew of Yakuza boss Kamata (the legendary Sonny Chiba), for the title of “Drift King.” While celebrating his victory, he’s challenged by another American: Dom, whose climactic cameo appearance indicates that, hey, this really is a “F&F” movie after all.

Roadside Attraction
Sung Kang’s Han Lue makes such a strong impression here that “Tokyo Drift” is temporarily stalled by the shock of his on-screen demise. Which, of course, makes his seemingly magical re-appearance in “Fast & Furious” (2009) so jarring — until it becomes clear that that sequel actually is a prequel. Or something like that. (It’s helpful to think of it as nestled somewhere inside the first few minutes of “Fast & Furious 6.”)

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
The drifting is da bomb.

Best Line(s)
Sean: “Nice ride.” Dom: “I won it from my friend Ham a few years ago.” Sean: “I didn’t know he was into American muscle.” Dom: “He was when he was rolling with me.”

Undercover cop Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) infiltrates a gang of speed-demon street-racers suspected of stealing top-dollar electronics from moving delivery trucks. Dominic “Dom” Toretto (Vin Diesel), the leader of the pack, gradually lets down his guard, invites Brian into his inner circle — and even acquiesces, reluctantly, when Brian starts dating Mia (Jordana Brewster), his va-va-voom sister. For a few laps, Brian prefers to believe Asian speedsters led by the snarling Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) are the real hijackers. But when Brian finally snaps to the truth — somewhere around, oh, I dunno, maybe a half-hour after the audience wises up — he does his duty as a cop. That is, until he decides it would better, or at least more audience-pleasing, to do something else.

Roadside Attraction
As Leticia “Letty” Ortiz, Michelle Rodriguez — fresh from her breakthrough in the 2000 Sundance hit “Girlfight” — is tough enough, and fast enough, to make her character’s hookup with Dominic a match made in movie heaven.

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
I did tell you about those hijackings of moving trucks, right?

Best Line
“I live my life a quarter mile at a time. Nothing else matters: Not the mortgage, not the store, not my team and all their bullshit. For those ten seconds or less, I’m free.” — Dom, explaining why he’s so fast. And furious.

Nostalgic vibes and amber-tinted flashbacks distinguish a greatest-hits sequel that reunites just about everybody ever associated with the “F&F” franchise, including a character long thought to be dead — hah! — and another who’s repeatedly referenced as being alive (albeit conspicuously late for dinner) even though the actor who played him really is deceased. The sci-fi tinged plot has something to do with the good guys chasing after two halves of a super-hacker device that, if connected, could allow the connector to rule the world, and something else to do with Dom’s long-estranged brother (Michael Cena) who has been estranged for so long because, well, Dom thinks he killed their father. Trouble is, that’s not quite enough to dispel a wall-to-wall sense of déjà vu. “F9” is a not-bad, not-great action-adventure that attempts to top, or at least match, the excitement level and testosterone quotient of previous entries in the series, but only sporadically succeeds. One clever touch is the movie’s variation on The Law of Chekhov’s Gun. In this case: Don’t introduce a rocket-propelled Pontiac Fiero in the first act unless you plan to rev it up in the third act.

Roadside Attraction
Dame Helen Mirren returns to cameo as the MILFish and manipulative Magdalene Shaw (a character introduced in “The Fate of the Furious”), and she makes every on-screen moment count as she takes the wheel to give Dom a wild ride through London in a stolen car (which, of course, she herself has stolen) with police in hot but hapless pursuit. When she drops him off at his destination, she offers a cheeky sendoff: “Dom, don’t get yourself killed, OK? You’re my favorite American.”

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
The extended climactic high-speed chase/armored assault in the streets of London is a little too extended, to the point of noticeable repetition and diminishing returns. (Yes, even with the cutaways to out-of-this-world action.) On the other hand, a much earlier high-speed chase that begins with a mad dash across a minefield, continues across a collapsing bridge, and ends with Dom and Letty stringing themselves along with what’s left of said bridge, is certainly worthy of inclusion in the “F&F” franchise highlight reel.

Best Line
“You know nobody’s gonna believe this, right?” It would spoil the surprise to reveal who says this, or in what context. But, really, just about anybody could have said this in any “Fast and Furious” movie, right?

In the franchise’s first spinoff, Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) reluctantly team — very reluctantly, actually — to locate and protect Shaw’s sister, Hattie (Vanessa Shaw), an MI6 agent who injects herself with a humanity-threatening virus to keep it from being snatched by Brixton Lorr (Idris Elba), a technology-enhanced “Black Superman” aligned with an organization not unlike the anarchists who figure into the later “Mission: Impossible” films. There is something at once exhilarating and exhausting about the movie’s one-damn-thing-after-another assemblage of increasingly (and spectacularly) over-the-top action set pieces. Indeed, one can easily image credited screenwriters Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce constructing their scattershot narrative during story conferences that consisted mostly of “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did this?” and “Yeah, but then it would be cooler if we did that!” Still, the hilariously hostile, “I’m more macho than you!” give-and-take between Johnson and Stratham is this action-adventure’s most special effect. And Shaw is an ass-kicking, bone-breaking marvel.

Roadside Attraction(s)
Franchise newbies Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart are very amusing during their unbilled cameos as, respectively, Hobbs’ erstwhile comrade-in-arms and a career-stalled U.S. air marshal. But neither is able to elicit the degree of full-throated cheering earned by Eddie Marsan as a skittish scientist who, when push comes to shove, makes better use of a flamethrower than anyone this side of Rick Dalton.

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
The sequence that begins with Brixton and his expendable minions blasting into a CIA safe house and ending with Brixton taking a short cut through a London double-decker bus is such a thrillingly sustained adrenaline rush, you may want to smoke a cigarette afterwards.

Best Line
At different points in the movie, Hobbs displays his erudition by quoting Friedrich Nietzsche and (move over, Quentin Tarantino) Bruce Lee. But I’m not going to spoil the best gag in the movie by revealing which quote is which.

Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here! Brian, Dom, Mia, Elena Neves (Elsa Pataki), Giselle, Han, Roman, Tej, Dobbs and even Letty are back in action, reunited to tangle with Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), a former SAS officer intent on stealing components for some kind of superweapon and selling it to the highest bidder. Turns out that Letty survived being in a fiery car crash — and getting shot by a drug lord’s minion — but lost her memory and, until her reunion with Dom, temporarily went over to the dark side. Unfortunately, Brian’s friend Vincent (Matt Schulze), who was killed in the last installment, is still very seriously dead. Even more unfortunately, Gisele also joins the ranks of the deceased — sorry, I have to laugh again; OK, let’s get back to the story — during a shootout while the good guys prevent the takeoff of Shaw’s getaway plane. At the end, Elena proves to be a good sport about getting out of the picture once Dom is back with Letty. But since this is a series where hardly anyone ever says goodbye (hell, even Arturo Braga, the villain of “Fast & Furious,” reappears here) you shouldn’t assume she won’t return.

Roadside Attraction
During the movie’s final minutes, Jason Statham makes his franchise debut — and, in the process, time-warps us back to “Tokyo Drift” by killing Han (yeah, right) — as a tough customer who turns out to be Owen’s vengeful brother.

Show-Stopping Stunt
Driving a car out of a flaming plane before it crashes? All in a day’s work for Dom.

Best Line:
“You don’t know me. You’re about to.” — Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), making his badass entrance.

Referencing everything from John Woo’s “Hard Boiled” (a shoot-out in which a shooter shields a baby) to Sergei Eisenstein’s “Alexander Nevsky” (an epic battle on ice), this episode occasionally recalls all the instances in earlier films where drivers used nitrous oxide injections to increase their flagging pace. Even so, it’s still exciting to watch the gang (joined by Kurt Russell’s Mr. Nobody, and Scott Eastwood as Mr. Nobody’s green assistant) as they tangle with Charlize Theron as Cipher, an ice-cold criminal mastermind who uses the long-absent Elena Neves — see, I told you she’d be back! — to temporarily turn Dom against his family for the greater bad. Deckard Shaw appears to redeem himself here, though it’s disappointing that he and Hobbs don’t make good on their threats to pulverize each other — and more than a little jarring to see how quickly Dom forgives and forgets what the guy did to Han. Of course, maybe he already knows…?

Roadside Attraction
Not content to recruit just one Oscar winner (Theron), the filmmakers add Dame Helen Mirren to the mix — for a few minutes, at least — as Magdalene Shaw, the shamelessly manipulative mother of Deckard and Owen. Magdalene thinks her boys are good boys, most of the time, but woe betide them if they don’t bend to her whim of iron.

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
OK, there’s that scene where the crew avoids an army of heavily armed pursuers, and dodges heat-seeking missiles and even a torpedo or two, while racing across the ice to halt a departing submarine. No, really.

Best Line
“Let me tell you something. Me and you. One on one. No one else around. I will beat your ass like a Cherokee drum.” — Hobbs to Deckard, not playing nice.

The franchise’s tenuous grip on reality gives way altogether in this episode, which signals the transition from high-speed racing to heist-movie action. After springing Dom from the prison-bound bus, Brian and Mia accompany him to Rio, where, along with Brian’s buddy Vince (Matt Schulze), who hasn’t been around since the first “Fast and Furious” film, they hatch a plot to steal cars from a moving train. One thing leads to another, faster than the speed of thought, and the ragtag crew expands to include Roman, Tej, Han, Gisele, and “Fast & Furious” vets Leo (Tego Calderon) and Santos (Don Omar), in order to separate another freakin’ drug lord (Joaquim de Almeida) from his ill-gotten gains. Dwayne Johnson, clearly having the time of his life, brings his boisterous bellowing and bulging biceps to the series in his first appearance as U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Dobbs, who helps push the testosterone level into the red zone and, midway through the final credits, discovers Letty may — ta-dah! — may still be alive.

Roadside Attraction
Elsa Pataky appears as Rio police officer Elena Neves, who serves as romantic interest for Dom — but only because the big lug thinks Letty has joined the Choir Invisible. Their union later proves to be, ahem, productive.

Show-Stopping Stunt
When our heroes use chains attached to their revved-up vehicles to drag an immense vault containing the drug lord’s cash throughout the streets of Rio, and end up using the vault as an offensive weapon against the cop cars on the trail, the sequence is so jaw-droppingly, mind-fryingly, downright exhilaratingly ridiculous, it instantly establishes itself as one of the franchise’s defining excesses.

Best Line(s)
Hobbs: “Toretto, you’re under arrest.” Dom: “I don’t feel like I’m under arrest.” Hobbs: “How about you, Brian?” Brian: “No, not a bit. Not even a little bit.” Hobbs: “Oh, just give it a minute. It will sink in.” Hey, boys will be boys.

Wire-to-wire action and industrial-strength testosterone dispel any melancholy cloud that might have hung over this chapter following the real-life death of lead player Paul Walker (who perished in an unrelated auto mishap during a break in production). With a little help from CGI aces — and discreet stand-in work by Walker’s brothers, Caleb and Cody — Brian looms as large as usual in the proceedings while the gang helps a spymaster named Mr. Nobody (franchise newbie Kurt Russell) retrieve God’s Eye, a computer program capable of using digital devices for global surveillance of… of… aw, who cares? It’s just the McGuffin, employed to justify a hunt that entails more globe-trotting than is the norm for an average James Bond flick. Deckard Shaw, making good on his promise to make himself known after killing Han (yeah, right) in the last episode, tries to raise the body count by terminating Dom and his buddies for their role in capturing and injuring his brother Owen. Meanwhile, Hobbs spends a lengthy stretch of the movie off-screen, recuperating after a scrape with Deckard, suggesting Dwayne Johnson may have shot another movie, or appeared at a couple Wrestlemania extravaganzas, between his opening and climactic scenes. And Vincent is still very seriously dead.

Roadside Attraction(s)
Even after his character is briefly benched by bullets, Kurt Russell saunters through the sound and fury with the impudent sangfroid of a veteran character actor who has read the last few pages of the script, and already cashed his easy paycheck. Martial artist Tony Jaa and MMA luminary Ronda Rousey exert themselves a bit more while battling Brian and Letty, respectively, during well-choreographed fight scenes.

Show-Stopping Stunt(s)
You’ll believe a car can fly. First, Dom and his crew drop into the Caucasus Mountains with their parachute-rigged cars to rescue Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel), an abducted computer hacker, from an armored convoy. Then, in Abu Dhabi, Dom and Brian rev up a billionaire’s prized Lyken HyperSport and drive it out of one skyscraper and into another — and then, when the brakes don’t work, into a third building. Cowabunga.

Best Line
“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.” — Dom bids goodbye to Brian. And to Paul Walker, gone too soon.