Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

This is a franchise entirely comfortable with what it is, what it’s not, and what it has to offer. It has a whole mess of “Fast” for us all, and woe be the souls who enter this film hoping to go slow.

Though high-octane stunts have always been the primary selling point here, Lin and veteran “Fast” screenwriter Chris Morgan have labored to add depth, dimensionality and inner conflict to the now-sprawling cast of recurring characters — so much so that, at times, “Furious 6” plays like a glossy gearhead melodrama.

Everyone involved at last seems to understand that the mode here is comic. Previous entries suffered from self-important glumness that gummed up the fun whenever the cars weren’t racing.

No film that includes a Vin Diesel flying headbutt could remotely be called a write-off, and Furious 6, like its predecessors, is a big screen no-brainer that’s objectively terrible but undeniably pleasurable. A reversal from Fast 5, it’s still a gear above all the other sequels. And an end-credits teaser promises much for the future.

Another silly but sturdy instalment that’s as well-oiled as The Rock’s muscles. If the ‘Letty in London’ story doesn’t exactly have that new-car smell, this is still the fastest soap opera on wheels.