BEIJING (AP) — Vin Diesel said Friday that the latest "Fast & Furious" film deserves a best picture Oscar but has two strikes against it when it comes to the Academy — it's an action flick and it's a sequel. "[...] yet we all know that there's a little stigma towards action films, we know it, we've heard people complain about it, we've heard Marvel complain about it, we've heard DC complain about it, and now Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Batman has never gotten a shot at that," he said. Alluding to the fact that many of the recent Oscar best picture winners haven't fared well at the box office, Diesel said: "The Oscars have been somewhat criticized in the last couple of years for maybe not being as populist as they could be, but we have a very powerful movie here." In "Fast & Furious 7," Diesel plays street racer Dominic Toretto, whose family is threatened by Jason Statham's character, who is out for revenge for the death of his brother.