Dear Faujja,

Fast & Furious has always been a loud, high-octane franchise, but thanks to your impressive ordinance it’s a little bit louder this go around. Admittedly, I haven’t seen a Fast & Furious movie since the early days. There’s been many, many movies since then—maybe too many. I could’ve mistaken Hobbs and Shaw for GI Joe—both star the Rock, both are full of high-tech military suit wearing antagonists, both (apparently) have lots of guns and CGI explosions, and both aren’t very good.

Gone are the origins of Tokyo drifting and drag racing, now we’re left with something unrecognizable and bloated with greed (the reason this movie was made.) My expectations were reasonable; I wasn’t holding out for The French Connection. As the movie dragged on, I contemplated walking out, and that’s the mark of a poor action flick.

You armed the cast with a wide array of small firearms, ancient Samoan war clubs, even a flamethrower—I only wish someone could have equipped the production with a better script.

The relationships between the characters aren’t interesting, especially when trying to evoke strong emotions. It’s riddled with clichés (think state-of-the-art headquarters located in the dank sewers of London.)

The best part about this movie are the smaller performances. Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds steal every scene they’re in. Hart is hilariously disarming as Air Marshall Dinkley and one of the few redeeming qualities of this movie. Helen Mirren is good, but so much better than this, and obviously only in it for the paycheck. The same can be said about every other actor in this car wreck.

The weapons you gave the characters are slick. Dwayne Johnson comically dwarfs his magnum revolver, reminiscent of Blade Runner. There’s no shortage of action scenes with your armoury on display. The shame is how these action sequences are filmed and edited, because we don’t really get a good look at your work. The cutting is rapid. Spatially, I found myself wondering where the characters were in relationship to each other. This kind of lazy action editing is ubiquitous, and really not fun to watch.

You’ve done your job here, and have no doubt been rewarded handsomely, but for my money I would rather see your talents return to the Kingsmen franchise.