Law of diminishing returns be damned, the accidental franchise that began with 2001’s The Fast and the Furious not only keeps chugging along well past other repeat players’ sell-by dates, but somehow grows even more successful. Now we’re up to Furious 7. Seven!

In terms of sequentially numbered series — no reboots, no remakes — such longevity and mobility are unheard of. For sake of perspective, other chapter sevens have found Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees facing New Blood in the form of a telekinetic teenager, and the Police Academy gang on a rather говенный Mission to Moscow. Respect, Furious 7, respect.

After the one-two horror punch of Insidious and The Conjuring, director James Wan trades poltergeists for pistons to take over the driver’s seat from Justin Lin, helmer of the past four adventures, from 2006’s underrated Tokyo Drift to 2013’s Fast & Furious 6. The change is imperceptible, because Wan keeps the camera at ass-cheek level around the gyrating bikini models and follows the Mad Libs plot structure: Reformed ex-con Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel, Riddick) is called upon to reassemble his team of gearheads for one last time — again!

For this go-round, the whole frickin’ world is at stake, with terrorists itching to wrest control of a global-surveillance system by kidnapping a frizzy-haired hacker (Nathalie Emmanuel, TV’s Game of Thrones) who conveniently looks dynamite in a bikini. And who else does the U.S. government rely upon to quash the threat but a bunch of grease monkeys with an extended subscription to Motor Trend … but only for the pictures.

So stuffed to the brim is F7 that it juggles two villains: the aforementioned international terrorist (Djimon Hounsou, Guardians of the Galaxy) and a British special-ops assassin (Jason Statham, The Expendables 3) who’s hissing-snake evil in his quest for vengeance following the murder of his F6-antagonist brother. As for the movie’s three set pieces, “big” doesn’t do them justice. They’re so outrageous — and know it — that they remind one of elementary schoolers tearing up Mom’s garden by playing with Hot Wheels: Cars parachute from military aircraft! Cars fly from skyscraper to skyscraper! Cars leap hovering helicopters! Whatever they dream up has been rendered possible and sold as plausible.

Not wanting to mess with a good thing — assuming you found the past couple of sequels to be that (and I did) — F7 retains that fizzy feeling for more than two hours, with Wan turning in what amounts to an all-star edition that presents practically every not-dead character from previous installments as audience rewards, complete with intentionally howl-worthy dialogue. The studio juggernaut feels like a love letter — or a “swipe right” on Tinder — to those long-haul fans who, like Dom, aim to live their lives a quarter-mile at a time. (That it marks the final bow for co-star Paul Walker, who died tragically halfway through filming, makes those good vibes stickier.)

New to the fold on sides both heroic and hateful are a smooth-as-snot Kurt Russell (Grindhouse); Ong-Bak’s Tony Jaa, Thailand’s answer to Jackie Chan; and UFC champ Ronda Rousey. Among the most notable returners is Diesel’s belly button, which, jutting from beneath a muscle shirt in the fiery climax, resembles a rather intimidating camel toe. —Rod Lott

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As reimagined by director Brett Ratner, Hercules is half-god, half-human and all but a lost cause. Hardly under-represented in cinema history, the mythological hero has been embraced by the public consciousness worldwide for centuries, largely through the “12 labors” tales that found him battling a three-headed dog and slaying the Hydra. Assuming you ditch the one about Herc having to clean stables in a day’s time, these stories are arguably the most ripe for screen adaptations; naturally, Ratner does away with them in the prologue, showing us only pieces of a few, like a greatest-hits reel. Tellingly, these are the high points of the film’s trailer, so you’re in for a long 98 minutes.

Based on Radical Comics’ series, this Hercules (Dwayne Johnson, Fast & Furious 6) toils for gold as a freelance mercenary (characters spit that word like a slur, the way “liberal” is used today), despite being the son of Zeus. The story’s stone wheels start moving when Herc is hired by Lord Cotys (John Hurt, V for Vendetta) to help quell a civil war in Thrace. With half a dozen special-skilled sidekicks (Dark City’s Rufus Sewell and Deadwood’s Ian McShane among the most notable) supporting him, Herc preps for battle by donning the skin of a vicious lion he once killed, draping it over his head the way preschoolers do security blankets. Speaking of animals, Herc later punches wolves.

Although with little variety from one to the next, the war sequences are staged with far greater competence than Ratner’s track record with action would have us expect — at least any action scene not involving Jackie Chan’s dazzling acrobatics, that is. But lordy, is this epic dull. More mortal than its main character, the film is doomed from the start when two CGI snakes look as if they were created on an iPhone app someone downloaded for free through a Starbucks promotion. Shorn nearly completely of the fantastical elements that make previous Hercules flicks such a hoot to watch — Cannon’s early ’80s pair of Lou Ferrigno vehicles, in particular — this massively budgeted monstrosity fails to muster any significant feelings beyond boredom and contempt. It’s even too soulless to be fun, for which, all other things being equal, I gladly would have settled. By comparison, Johnson’s similar-in-appearance Scorpion King is Raiders of the Lost Ark.

None of this is Johnson’s fault; as always, the guy perspires charisma. Ratner errs in letting too much humor show through, to where everyone is at the ready with a quip engineered for pandering laughter, which would be a masterstroke if the Rush Hour conductor were making — or remaking — Hercules in New York. He was not. He made an action-adventure summer blockbuster so beholden to mass appeal, each reel has been cast in that Jerry Bruckheimer-favored Instagram filter marked “Weasel Piss.”

To be fair, Ratner’s Hercules is more watchable than 2014’s competing Greco-Roman project, Renny Harlin’s The Legend of Hercules. (To be fair again, Harlin left the bar set at ground-level.) This Herc pic is so far from mighty, Greece is not the word. —Rod Lott

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Directed by that action-flick Top Gun we know as Tony Scott, The Last Boy Scout shows remarkable restraint. By that, I mean the word “fuck” and its variations are uttered only 102 times in its 105 minutes. I would’ve expected Scott either to go for a even 1-to-1 ratio or tip it in favor of the F-bomb.

Or, as Damon Wayans’ disgraced-quarterback character spells it, “bom” — a fitting emblem for a movie so stultifyingly stupid. Written by Shane Black in his pure Lethal Weapon mode (except not good), Scout pairs Wayans (I’m Gonna Git You Sucka) with Bruce Willis (Die Hard) as a down-and-out private dick looking to solve the murder of the former footballer’s stripper girlfriend (Halle Berry, X-Men: Days of Future Past).

Despite seeing release in 1991, Scout is very much of the ’80s, thanks to the meaty mitts of producer Joel Silver, who defined action-movie excess in the decade with the likes of Predator, Commando and the aforementioned Die Hard and Lethal Weapon franchises. His loud-and-proud formula is in full effect here (except not good), as evidenced by all the neon, synth rock, pro football, cigarettes with inch-long ashes, lines of cocaine and chugging aspirin straight from the bottle.

Not to mention the exotic dancers, thongs, car chases, gun-porn shots to the head (in slow motion, even!), ’splosions, Willis’ Squint-’n’-Smirk® acting style, Wayans’ Prince impersonations, Scott’s beloved sepia tone, Pepsi product placement, car phones, a foul-mouthed kid (Halloween 4 and 5’s Danielle Harris, then barely a teenager), not-funny wisecracks (“I’m Fuckface; he’s Asshole”) and — last but definitely least — a credits-to-credits battle between raging homophobia and latent homosexuality. —Rod Lott

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Ginger McAllister — aka 1971’s Ginger — is back and sluttier than ever in The Abductors! The blonde bimbo-cum-superspy (Cheri Caffaro, Too Hot to Handle) cuts short her pool time in the Caribbean to take on another do-or-die case “just for fun” from her paisley-leaning boss (William Grannel, Carnival of Blood).

This mission — slightly more James Bondian because she’s given swallowable “radar disks” — involves finding out who and what are behind the kidnapping of four attractive teenage girls. As viewers, we’re privy to the answer: These cheerleader types (one of whom is played Jeramie Rain, aka Sadie of Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left) are sold to rich, old, white men willing to pay “up to $100,000” for their services — in other words, sex slaves, but with the classier title of “mistresses in bondage.”

Ginger’s investigation instantly introduces her to a dapper (by 1972 New Jersey standards) advertising agency owner (Richard Smedley, The Naughty Stewardesses), who assists her endeavors by publicizing an undercover hottie (Laurie Rose, The Suckers) in the market in hopes of luring the abductors to snatch the bait. He also climbs aboard Ginger, because hell, who doesn’t? If she’s not conducting her secret-agent business in a transparent shirt with no bra underneath, she’s conducting her secret-agent business in a macrame top with no bra underneath — either way, those clothes are coming off before long, whether you want them to or not. Action of the sexual kind is more prevalent than that wrought by weapons, vehicles and fisticuffs.

The “ick” factor is thicker with Don Schain’s sequel than with its predecessor. Not only was he obviously cool with shooting then-wife Caffaro being missionaried and manhandled — he wrote and directed the damn thing, after all — but he’s keen on depicting each curvy hostage being milked by villainous hands, and posits that rape will turn a woman into proverbial putty — and that goes double for virgins. Even Ginger herself is party to the misogyny, being gifted with the strange habit of jacking off her male enemies after she’s captured them. No wonder Ms. McAllister’s third and final chapter was titled Girls Are for Loving. —Rod Lott

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Across three adventures in the early ’70s, twentysomething tramp Ginger McAllister was the 007 of 42nd Street. Written and directed by Don Schain, the titillating trilogy starred his then-wife, Cheri Caffaro (Savage Sisters), a living Barbie doll without the winning smile or sparkling personality. In the eponymous first flick, Ginger, our rich, pampered heroine is completely unqualified for her dangerous mission, but the authorities hire her anyway to the tune of $50,000 because she’s a statuesque blonde who’s more than happy to show off her tanlines.

Her assignment: At a posh New Jersey resort, she is to infiltrate a snatch-and-smack ring — with the infrequent foray into blackmail — run by seven bored adult children of the jet set. The mealy mouthed mastermind behind it is Rex Halsey (Duane Tucker, Fast Times at Ridgemont High), who might be wearing a dog collar at one point, but definitely looks like the bastard offspring of comedian Andy Kaufman and Rocky Horror Picture Show transvestite Dr. Frank N. Furter.

The undercover work requires Ginger to get naked a lot, which is not a problem for her or Caffaro; I suspect her disrobing to full-frontal nudity is the movie’s raison d’être. If it’s not to trick a bad guy into castration by piano wire, it’s to have her nipples violently nursed by Rex as foreplay to being raped. Which is more disturbing:
a) that Schain’s framing and Caffaro’s acting via false eyelashes suggest Ginger ultimately enjoys being sexually assaulted, or
b) that Schain later became the producer responsible for Disney’s High School Musical franchise? (The answer is “a,” just to be clear.)

Good side or bad, the characters speak haltingly, less for dramatic effect and more for struggling with words they’ve been tasked to repeat; thus, everyone. Talks. Like. This. Specializing in that delivery — as wooden as the paneling on the walls of a ’70s porn set — is our leading floozy. Caffaro closes the initial chapter that is Ginger by confessing, “Right now, I just feel sorta blah.” Sentiments shared, Ging. —Rod Lott

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