After 2009’s Fast & Furious brought the franchise back to popular prominence, 2011’s Fast Five continued that trend. 2013’s Fast & Furious 6 made sure the series’ financial upswing progressed, as it became the biggest hit to that time.

Furious 6 also takes the characters farther and farther away from their street racing origins. At the end of Fast Five, the crew headed by Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) split up and went to different areas. Due to intense scrutiny, they live on the lam and feel pressure from law enforcement entities.

Dom and company get a shot at redemption – and pardons – when US Diplomatic Security Service Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) offers a deal. If they help him capture mercenary Owen Shaw (Luke Evans), they can receive pardons. Dom brings back his crew to chase Shaw and seek redemption, a factor complicated by the apparent return from the dead of Dom’s girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez).

Furious 6 became director Justin Lin’s fourth – and final – flick in the series. He skipped 2015’s Furious 7 so he could work on 2016’s Star Trek: Beyond.

I felt Lin offered fairly pedestrian work for his prior three Fast films, but I hoped for something better from Furious 6 due to familiarity. After four movies, it seemed likely that Lin would achieve enough comfort to exploit the material’s positives.

At times, Lin does display growth, mainly in terms of the driving scenes. These fare better than in the past, so the movie’s action manages to boast reasonable excitement.

These scenes go farther and farther into Fantasyland, though, as the franchise starts to lean closer to the insanity of Roger Moore-era James Bond than the semi-realistic street racers of the earlier films. Do these sequences become fun? Sure, but they fly fast and furious into a world of utter unreality, a change that can feel tough to swallow at times.

However well he stages the action, Lin still can’t tell a story very well – especially a muddled narrative like this one. At its core, Furious 6 comes with a simple tale: it concentrates on the hunt for Shaw, and it includes the subplot related to Letty’s resurrection.

Despite the inherent simplicity of the narrative, Furious 6 can’t follow a straight line. It complicates matters in an unnecessary manner, as if the filmmakers believe a murky story will feel meaningful and deep. It doesn’t – it just becomes messy and confused.

Over the top as it may be, the action of Furious 6 musters enough goofy thrills to keep the viewer’s interest, but it can be hard to stomach the long stretches of plot/character-related tedium. Fans of the franchise seem likely to love it, but the rest of us will experience a more mixed reaction.

Footnote: Furious 6 finally catches up the series’ chronology. Though it came as the series’ third movie, Tokyo Drift actually takes place after Furious 6.

A mid-credit sequence here reminds us of what happened to Han in Tokyo Drift, and it adds a new character who leads toward Furious 7.

Fast & Furious 6 appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie came with a solid transfer.

Sharpness worked fine. Some interiors looked a smidgen soft, but those were the exception to the rule, which meant the movie usually appeared well-defined.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering appeared, and edge haloes remained absent. I also noticed no source flaws here, as the movie was always clean and clear.

Colors opted for a heavy teal orientation, with a fair amount of orange as well. Within its stylistic constraints, the tones seemed fine.

Blacks were tight and dense, and I thought shadows showed nice clarity and definition. The Blu-ray portrayed the film in an accurate manner.

Furious 6 also came with a strong DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack. Given its action orientation, I expected a broad, engaging mix, and that’s what I got. In the effects domain, gunfire and driving scenes added the most zip; those used the five channels in a lively, engrossing manner.

Other effects added flair as well, and music showed good stereo imaging. The surrounds became full partners through much of the flick and contributed to the movie’s impact.

Audio quality always remained positive. Effects were the biggest factor, and they seemed excellent. Those elements demonstrated good clarity and punch, with some deep, rich bass.

Music was smooth and clear, while speech appeared natural and concise. No problems emerged during this impressive mix.

The Blu-ray boasts both the film’s theatrical cut (2:10:18) as well as an extended version (2:11:02). Given that the latter runs a mere 44 seconds longer than the former, it feels like a tease to sell the Blu-ray with the promise of an “extended version”. Sure, it’s technically true, but c’mon - 44 seconds?

This means a few scenes get minor additions, but the extended version alters Furious 6 in other ways. Since it doesn’t worry about a “PG-13” rating, it’s a little more violent/graphic, as it uses alternate footage at times.

None of this turns it into anything brutal, though, so don’t expect this to become something that feels “R”-rated. The extended cut is probably the preferred version, but both are so similar that it doesn’t really matter which one you watch.

The set includes an audio commentary from director Justin Lin. Alongside the Extended Cut, Lin offers a running, screen-specific look at story/character areas, cars, stunts and action, sets and locations, cast and performances, music, the movie’s title, and connected domains.

Four Furious films into his reign, Lin knows his way around a commentary, and that familiarity shows. Lin offers a good recap of production areas and moves the track along at a nice rate, with fluff kept to a minimum. Lin turns this into a useful discussion.

Three Deleted Scenes fill a total of one minute, 40 seconds. We find “Intro to CCTV” (0:33), “Han and Gisele Talk” (0:31), and “Prison Guard” (0:36). Too brief to offer much of merit, these offer minor expository/character tidbits but nothing memorable.

A mix of featurettes follow, and we begin with Take Control. It runs 19 minutes, 18 seconds and offers notes from Lin and actors Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Paul Walker.

They cover story/characters and franchise chronology/mythology, cast and performances, cars, stunts and action.

Fast & Furious used this option but in a different way. On that disc, the participants would pop up during the movie and comment on/interact with it.

Rather than make us sit through 130 minutes of movie for 19 minutes of “Control”, I’m glad the feature works this way. We get a decent array of insights throughout the program.

With The Making of Fast & Furious 6, we get a four-part domain that takes up a total of 26 minutes, 43 seconds. “Making” splits into “The Fastest of Them All” (10:06), “Reuniting the Team” (7:34), “Letty’s Return” (4:42) and “The Mastermind and His Mole” (4:21).

Across these, we hear from Lin, Diesel, Walker, Rodriguez, producer Neal H. Moritz, 2nd unit director Spiro Razatos, 2nd unit stunt coordinator Andy Gill, unit production manager Clayton Townsend, writer Chris Morgan, and actors Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans, Gal Gadot, Jordana Brewster, Sung Kang, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Gina Carano, and Laz Alonso.

The segments look at locations, story/characters, stunts and action, cast and performances. The various clips tend toward the fluffy side of the street, so we get some decent shots from the set and little else.

Next comes another four-parter: Planes, Tanks and Automobiles. Its sections run a total of 24 minutes, 16 seconds and break into “The London Chase” (7:56), “Highway Heist” (6:28), “The Antonov Takedown” (6:18) and “Dom and Letty Race Again” (3:35).

These clips deliver info from Lin, Evans, Gill, Razatos, Walker, Gibson, Diesel, Moritz, Rodriguez, Gadot, McCarthy, VFX supervisor Kelvin McIlwain, senior SFX technician Ryan Conder, 2nd unit key grip Darren Holland, and SFX supervisor Joss Williams.

Once again we go to the set, with an emphasis on driving action and stunts. Though these clips also tend toward hyperbole, they offer more than enough useful info to maintain our attention.

It’s All About the Cars goes into three more pieces: “On the Set With Vin” (3:16), “Gearhead’s Delight” (6:27) and “The Flip Car” (5:23). We locate notes from Lin, Diesel, McCarthy, Razatos, Walker, Moritz, Gill, Bridges, Evans and stunt driver Mark Higgins.

As implied by the title, “Cars” covers aspects of the movie’s vehicles. Like its siblings, these tend toward a lot of hyperbole, but they give us a good array of notes about the vehicles and stunts.

Finally, Hand to Hand Fury runs nine minutes, 44 seconds and features Diesel, Lin, Powell, Walker, Johnson, Carano, Rodriguez, Evans, fight choreographer Olivier Schneider, fight arrangers Yves Girard and Patrick Vo and actor Joe Taslim. Another self-explanatory title, “Fury” covers some of the personal combat elements. It turns into another enjoyable piece.

The disc opens with ads for Kick Ass 2, Fast and Furious 6: The Game, Transformers: The Ride and Riddick. No trailer for Furious 6 appears here, but we do find a “First Look” at Furious 7 (1:54) that simply shows one scene from that movie.

A second disc presents a DVD copy of Furious 6. It includes the commentary, the four “Making of” clips, “On the Set with Vin” and the deleted scenes but lacks the other extras. It also doesn’t provide the Extended Cut of the film.

Many films into the franchise, Fast & Furious 6 demonstrates the series’ desire to go crazier and crazier with its action. This results in some exciting stunts but the absence of an involving narrative restricts the movie’s appeal. The Blu-ray offers generally good picture along with excellent audio and mostly interesting supplements. Furious 6 becomes another erratic action flick.