'Furious 7' is undeniably ridiculous -- but it also undeniably fun

Vin Diesel in a rare smiling moment

I missed out on the whole Fast & the Furious excitement when they first came out.

People would tell me I looked like Vin Diesel and it annoyed me endlessly (it occasionally still does).

And the whole franchise just seemed retrograde and dumb to me.

But then a funny thing happened about five movies into the series. The trailers started looking a little bit cooler to me, and friends whose opinions I respected kept telling me to give these films a chance.

I actually really love action movies -- and have enjoyed quite a few that could be characterized as unintelligent -- but for some reason, my resistance to Diesel and friends was strong. Yet last year I binge watched almost all of them -- I skipped Tokyo Drift, and I get the feeling I didn't miss much. To me, the strange thing was that the films by and large got better with each sequel instead of worse, which almost never happens. Fast Five is still my favorite by the way.

Several factors probably helped make these films the reliably entertaining blockbusters they are today. The filmmakers realized that they should just go way big all the time with the fight scenes, car chases and action set pieces. They actually had a few real laughs. And they kept it old school -- these films feel like something out of a time warp, and throwbacks are in right now.

I also appreciate the fact that that the Furious movies actually feature a multi-racial cast, and seem to be pitched at that very audience. Of course, they also feature elements that are pretty lowbrow too (the gratuitous T&A shots) but when you're talking about the seventh film in a series like this, you should almost expect that.

Here's what I liked about the new one. What's bad about it is most fun. The only element I would trim down or excise (the film is about 20 minutes too long) is the drawn out drama between Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez's characters. Diesel's strength is definitely not emoting, and these two have so little chemistry it hurts to watch them at times. And apparently, his character is allergic to sleeves

But for the most part, the cheesy dialogue ("you should never keep a beast in a cage") is harmless and funny, the banter between the ersatz "family" which includes Tyrese, Ludacris and the late Paul Walker is hardly witty but nevertheless endearing. The action is relentlessly thrilling and the movie has the good sense to pay homage to original bad asses like Kurt Russell, who has a small but pivotal role here.

These films are also almost always as good as the villain and they have a really good one here in Jason Statham, who has a great presence about him and has always deserved to be in better films. Here, he gets plenty of time to shine as a formidable bad guy. He's aided tremendously by an under-used and always lovable Dwayne Johnson who lights up the screen whenever he shows up.

Watching this film -- with an audience that loved every minute of it -- I couldn't help but think of The Expendables movies which never quite captured the sweet spot of audiences the way thes Furious ones do. Those Stallone movies were almost schizophrenic, they wanted to be in on the joke but also earnest. And they never delivered enough bravado, adrenaline rush action to get you through the dull parts.

The Furious movies are unapologetic about what they are, you either go along for the ride or you don't -- and with balls to the wall action like this it's hard not to.

Finally, there's the way the film serves as a send off to Paul Walker. I won't spoil anything but I will say that it is surprisingly moving considering all that proceeded it.

Furious 7 isn't going to make my top 10 list oo anything like that -- but it certainly is kicking off the summer movie season early with a lot of panache.