No one gets Jason Statham quite like Guy Ritchie. And vice versa.

From the very beginnings of their mutually beneficial collaborative efforts, the two have proven deft at understanding and embracing the talents of the other. But it has been a long time since their last outing together – 2005’s “Revolver” – and a lot has changed, with both men venturing more fully into the realm of the blockbuster.

They’ve teamed up once more on the new film “Wrath of Man,” based on the 2004 French film “Le Convoyeur.” It’s a Ritchie specialty, featuring assorted lowlifes and criminals and their behaviors of varying degrees of amorality. It’s an action thriller content to lean far more heavily on the former rather than the latter, sitting back and letting its action star lead do what he does best.

Watching this movie, you wouldn’t guess that it had been 15-plus years since Statham and Ritchie worked together. But the energy and sensibility that they shared is still going strong – it’s not the best work either’s ever done, but it is a solid entry into the filmography of both.

Remember “The Fast and the Furious”? The movie that was about illegal street racing?

Those days are long past, of course; as things currently stand, these movies exist in a physics-defying universe of impossible stunts, ridiculous fistfights and cornball dialogue. Notice I didn’t mention plot or character development, because that is very much not what these movies are about.

And never has the franchise been as fully all-in on the nonsense as it is with this latest iteration. This new installment – the first in what will almost certainly end up being a cavalcade of spinoffs – is “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” (for the sake of brevity, we’ll go ahead and just call it “Hobbs & Shaw” moving forward – no one will have any trouble remember the connection to “F&F”).

This one leaves behind Dominic Torretto and his street-racer-turned-international-superagent “family” to focus on later arrivals Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, allowing for an expansion of the franchise into a whole new realm of lunacy.

And expand it does, offering audiences a spectacle even sillier and more outlandish than the extremely silly and outlandish stuff we’ve seen in the most recent “F&F” films. There’s no narrative cohesion to speak of and a lot of what happens doesn’t really add up, but let’s be real – you’re not coming to this movie for the story. What you ARE here for is the action – and there’s a LOT of that, with set pieces that lean into the big, dumb and ultimately loving embrace of the franchise.

It doesn’t make much sense, but hey – it doesn’t have to.

After nearly a decade of reviewing movies, I’ve learned that some of the best cinematic experiences come from sitting down with simple expectations and having those expectations met. When you know what you want to get from a movie and then get exactly that, well – you’ve won.

However, that also means that when those simple expectations AREN’T met, you’re even more disappointed than you might otherwise be in a less-than-stellar film.

This brings us to “The Meg,” a movie that would seem to have it all: Jason Statham, a giant shark, a … well, that’s it, I suppose. Jason Statham and a giant shark. Those six words would almost seem like a guarantee of a goofy good time at the movies - ludicrous CGI and over-the-top action sequences and shark-pun-laden one-liners galore.

But while all of those things are there, “The Meg” never quite rises up to become even the sum of its parts, instead wandering along in a disjointed and haphazard progression, unable to decide whether to take itself seriously or to throw the metaphorical elbow to our ribs and hence arriving in a weird tonal limbo where we’re not sure how we’re supposed to react. Are we laughing? Are we tense? We don’t know … and neither does the movie.

Eighth franchise installment as big, as dumb – and as fun – as ever

Action sequel offers thin narrative and ludicrous violence

In a lot of ways, Jason Statham is a bit of a throwback.

Action homage/parody full of exciting excess

How many action stars can comfortably fit in a film?

Sylvester Stallone seems bound and determined to find out with 'The Expendables 2,' the second installment in Stallone's ongoing deconstruction of the 1980s action film. The first movie felt like a bit of a novelty, but for this second one to succeed, Stallone was going to have to take things to the next level.

So he did.