It’s been a strange and bizarre road for the now 12-year-old "Fast and the Furious" franchise. With the original 2001 surprise hit and its dubiously (or should I say 2biously … no, I shouldn’t) titled sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious," the street racing series’ ambitions seemed clear. It was forgettable car porn, with absurd plots, an unholy love for NOS, sexy ladies and boring young actors who couldn’t outshine the asphalt, much less their sweet rides.

Under the energetic eye of director Justin Lin – who took the wheel for the third entry "Tokyo Drift" and hasn’t let go since – the franchise took a dramatic U-turn away from its street racing origins and moved toward action-heavy, "Italian Job" for dummies heisting and excitement. It ended up being a brilliant maneuver, leading to 2011’s "Fast Five," an all-time series high in terms of box office and, most importantly, awesomely ridiculous entertainment.

Now there’s "Fast & Furious 6" – or what I like to call it, "Superman Punches 6: Revenge of the Superman Punches." And while the sixth installment is never quite able to reach the explosively brilliant highs of "Fast Five," it’s still a constantly amusing, full-throttle experience that never bothers to pump the breaks.

The film – called "Furious 6" on the title card – finds the crew scattered to the winds after their successful heist in Rio two years ago. Now that former cop Brian (Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are happy parents, they and gravel-voiced team leader Dom (Vin Diesel) vow to leave their criminal ways behind them.

Their promise lasts about five minutes, as old nemesis-turned-ally Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) comes knocking, asking for help with Owen Shaw (a fairly menacing Luke Evans), a new villain who is trying to steal some military techno-doodad that’s apparently dangerous, worth a bunch of money and barely worth mentioning. It’s the definition of a MacGuffin.

The real focus of the mission is Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom’s old girlfriend who was assumed dead in the fourth chapter but turns up in Shaw’s crew with a case of explosion-induced amnesia. It’s a battle for Letty’s soul between our makeshift family of automobile-loving misfits and Shaw’s soullessly led crew of necessary but interchangeable "parts." And if they manage to stop the international criminal from stealing the valuable chip … thing and snag some pardons too, well, that’s just a bonus.

Over the course of the previous three films, Lin asserted himself as one of Hollywood’s finest up-and-coming action directors (at one point, his name was attached to both a "Highlander" remake and a fifth "Terminator" movie) while also resuscitating the franchise and turning it into blockbuster. "Fast & Furious 6" serves as his farewell from the series, and he says goodbye in grandly outrageous fashion.

In memorable set piece after memorable set piece, Lin proves to be a master at orchestrating testosterone-packed chaos. Whether the sequences are big – a massive chase across London featuring cars with ramps instead of bumpers – or small – a duo of bruising subway station fistfights – the filmmaker continually manages to gather multiple moving parts into visually coherent and ferociously exciting moments. He has an unquenchable thirst for flipping slick cars into the air, off bridges, into buildings and under tanks. I doubt any audience members will complain.

As the film enthusiastically drives on, the action scenes get even bigger and bolder, including a freeway tank rampage and a fiery assault on a plane mid-takeoff. Each one escalates in destructive thrills, as well as physics-defying insanity. People hop to and from speeding vehicles as though they’re playing high-stakes Frogger.

The climactic finale involves cars weighing down an entire aircraft and takes place on a seemingly endless runway. The crème de la crazy comes when Dom hurls himself from a crashing car to catch an airborne Letty (it’s okay; there’s a car to cushion their high-speed landing). The scene plays like one big, giddy middle finger to Isaac Newton.

It’s absolutely absurd, which admittedly kills some of the stakes. Even at its most bonkers, however, it’s still entertaining. Plus, a movie in which there are two jaw-dropping twists on the Superman punch and a villainous German heavy named Klaus in the epic climax earns plenty of forgiveness.

If "Fast & Furious 6" has a flat tire anywhere, it’s in that pesky stuff in between all of the cool cars and cooler crashes. The story is at its usual level of preposterousness, serving as a perfectly adequate vehicle for the action spectacle, but the dialogue from screenwriter Chris Morgan (who, like Lin, also came to the series with "Tokyo Drift" and ended up staying put) isn’t quite as sharp this time around.

No scene can go by without some corny and cliché hokum about family – the characters use the word as much as they use fossil fuels – or a trailer-ready line about things going to "a whole different level."

Most disappointingly, part five’s preposterously brawny scene stealer Dwayne Johnson doesn’t have as many hilariously awesome tough guy zingers, leaving the bickering duo of Ludacris and Tyrese Gibson to carry most of the comedy weight. They’re amusing enough, but more in a guilty, dumb funny way. Besides participating in a vicious girlfight with Rodriguez, newcomer Gina Carano also brings very little other than her emotionless perma-smirk.

There are more excited giggles to be had than groans, however, and though the script overloads on the family sappiness, it’s hard to argue against its effectiveness. As the movie hit the final stretch and the characters were running out of paint to trade, I found myself oddly caring about these charming motorheads. Though the cast still isn’t anything special, they’ve really grown nicely into their roles.

It’s rare to find a franchise five sequels in adding a little heart to the proceedings rather than removing it. A series that’s not running on fumes by its sixth entry is even more obscure. But somehow that’s what Lin and company deliver with "Fast & Furious 6." It’s half pulse-pounding automotive action, half Looney Tunes and all wildly entertaining.