Category: Our Critics

“This isn’t strategy,” says Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), surveying the remains of Ultron’s first victim. “This is rage.”

Furious 7 wastes no time in establishing a new mortal enemy for the crew of street racers led by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker); in the opening moments, haunting the hospital room of a comatose Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), the group’s previous nemesis, is the elder brother, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham, the Transporter himself).

The earth spins on, but unknown to humanity – a species whose origin, it turns out, is extraterrestrial – our entire planet is just a valuable piece of real estate at stake in the squabbling of a trio of heirs to a galactic dynasty.

Few opinions will be swayed by the final instalment in Peter Jackson’s big-screen chronicle of Tolkien’s Middle Earth – audiences have fully engaged or given up by now. But it can’t hurt for skeptics to know that the last link in the chain is also the shortest of the trilogy (and for that matter, the trimmest of all six films).