Fast & Furious 8

Given how much of Fast & Furious 8's ad campaign is dedicated to telling us that Vin Diesel's character has done the unthinkable and betrayed his family, it's natural to wonder if Universal are testing the waters to see if the franchise can survive without its gravely voiced linchpin. A villainous role specifically isolates him from the pack, inviting the idea that, ultimately, Dominic Toretto is disposable. Couple that with the star's very public falling out with guaranteed draw The Rock (not to mention a bigger part for Jason Statham) and the deck looks to be pointedly stacked against Big Vin.

On the night Furious 8 is, if anything, the inverse of that idea. In F Gary Gray's entry Toretto is a folk hero, drawing out the innate goodness in men that have found themselves morally muddled. His goodness is the kind of bright, shining light you'd find in romantic myth; Toretto is at once a brooding Arthurian King, dealing with threats to his very identity, and the kind of innately decent, plain speaking warrior found on the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump. Furious 8 makes the case that Diesel is actually essential to the franchise. Without him and his puppy dog enthusiasm, the extended family motif plays like an artificial, focus tested organisation of cheap TV stars and ex-rappers.

Vin Diesel's old fashioned star power aside, Statham finally gets to deliver on the promise of Fast & Furious 6's credits stinger, cutting promos on an equally excited Dwayne Johnson before performing his own hyperkinetic take on Hard-Boiled's poster moment. Furious 8 also turns in a stunningly executed centrepiece collision that gives Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines' hijacked car idea a modern, self-driven spin. It's a Luddite's worst nightmare: hundreds of autonomous vehicles speeding towards a pile-up so wonderfully, deliriously excessive that its closest visual antecedent is that ill-advised moment Terry Funk and Cactus Jack implored a bloodthirsty ECW crowd to throw them a chair.