If you haven’t seen Furious 7 yet, I know what you’re thinking. You’re interested, but you’re just not sure if there’s quite enough speed or fury to make it worth your while.
Luckily, the numbers don’t lie, and Furious 7 is absolutely the best movie of all time; if “best movie of all time” is measured by cars and punching (which frankly, it should be).
Bloomberg to the rescue.
Bloomberg recently conducted an in-depth study on the Fast & Furious movies, measuring just how much time in each installment was spent being fast, and and how often the characters were furious.
To measure these metrics, the “researchers” tracked how much screentime was devoted to driving (aka, being fast), and how much involved violence that could be considered furious, such as a fist fight.
The results.
Adding it all up, Furious 7 is definitely a peak for the series on both counts, which should be no surprise to anyone who’s seen it. After all, we’re talking about a movie where cars are dropped out of planes, and Jason Statham has two separate fight scenes with the Rock and Vin Diesel.
Taking a closer look at this important and world-changing data, we can see that while the series’ fast rating seems to be all over the place, there’s a progressive uptick in fury following 2006‘s Tokyo Drift. That third installment also bears the dubious honor of being the series’ most peaceful entry.
And in case you gauge how good a movie is by metrics other than fast cars and punching, Bloomberg’s research also tracked swearing, use of NOS, and “calmer moments,” including how many times a character said “family,” attended a BBQ, or said grace.
So is Furious 7 the best entry in the series? I say no, as Fast Five, to me at least, is still the gold standard for that franchise. That being said, according to the numbers at least, the seventh installment has the other entries beat by a healthy margin in both speed and furiousness. I smell an Oscar nomination.
