My first F&F but certainly not the last in the franchise

Rating: Null/10 (4 April 2015)

Between 2001-2013, the first six movies in this incredibly lucrative franchise totally escaped my attention but, on a wet and gloomy Good Friday in 2015, two young friends organised that we should see three new releases in one day and chose "Fast & Furious 7" to start the project. I found it utterly mindless but totally entertaining. The acting is wooden and the dialogue is dire (such gems as "Let's do it!"), but it is an action-packed, adrenaline-pumping roller-coaster full of car chases, fist fights, and some breathtaking stunts with exotic locations and some scantily clad women for good measure.
The villain is Deckard ('deck' and 'hard' - get it?) Shaw, played by British 'actor' Jason Statham, who is upset that his brother was badly treated in the previous movie. So he is out to get the old crew led by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) who find that they can turn hunted into hunter by accessing a super surveillance system called "God's Eye" that (somehow) has not yet been revealed to the world by Edward Snowden. The punishment that these adversaries can take and the feats that cars can apparently perform (leaping from one skyscraper to another is an special treat) are ludicrous but fun.
For fans of the franchise, a poignancy about this seventh outing is that, during filming, Walker was killed (by all things through a car accident) and how his loss is dealt with in plot terms will please the devotees.