Summer is the time of the year that the culture industries dust off their old properties and take them for a spin to see if they still handle like they used to. Typically they don’t: sequels rarely garner the same enthusiasm, from critics or audiences, as successful originals.

Everyone knows this, so there’s something shameful about sequels, in spite of those rare cases when a fictional universe or charismatic character begs for further treatment. They reveal our cultural system as rooted in a craven search for profit, and insist on a certain level of cynical complicity from audiences. That Bernie’s corpse is fresh enough for another weekend requires some suspension of disbelief. (How you deal with this is up to you; I noticed quite a bit of booze smuggled into the theater for Furious 7.)

A plotline or relationship between characters can only be stretched so far before things begin to pull apart, producing a creeping sclerosis in most film franchises. The traditions of completed films weigh heavily on their sequels. Expectations are built in. Previously successful formulas are repeated, and calibrated up.