There are some, I’m certain, that would say that because I have never viewed any of the other Fast and Furious movies, I’m not exactly qualified to review the fifth installment in this testosterone-fueled franchise. While there may be some truth to that, I remain resolute in my belief that any movie that requires me to watch any other material in order to understand what is going on is not worth my time. Every sequel should be able to stand on its own, as its own complete story. If it can’t, then a sequel shouldn’t have been made. Regardless, Fast Five does not fall prey to that problem, and while it certainly isn’t a great film, it was a helluva lot of fun to watch.

The story starts off with—wait a minute. You know what? You don’t want to know about the story. This is a Fast and Furious film! You want to see scantily clad women, preposterous car chases, and badass fights that will go down in the history of badassery everywhere! Well, okay, maybe some of you want to know about the story, and honestly, it’s not preposterously bad. Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his ragtag group of lovable criminals are being chased down by two distinct groups: the incorruptible American task force, run by Agent Hobbes (Dwayne Johnson), and the entirely corruptible Rio de Janeiro police force controlled by Brazil’s most powerful drug kingpin. The latter group betrays Toretto and his friends early on in the film, and so for revenge, they decide to steal all of the kingpin’s money. Like, seriously. All of it.

Despite the inherent ridiculousness in a story of that scale, it’s actually pulled off quite effectively. There are twists and turns that pose very real challenges to the characters; I was always quite intrigued, followed by mildly surprised when they overcame the near-impossible roadblocks in their way. I watched the movie with a few friends who had been avid viewers of the series and told me that none of the other films had such a well-crafted, weaving narrative—I must admit, I was surprised by how well the film pulled off the overdone heist storyline, building it to greater and more preposterous heights than I would have thought possible. Even though the acting is primarily garbage, the movie stays entertaining enough that while watching it, you don’t particularly care.

The over-the-top moments in the film certainly deliver—the fight between Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson is effectively awesome and quite possibly one of the coolest fights of recent years, not because it’s incredibly choreographed (in fact, that aspect was mildly lacking) but because of the two men actually doing the fighting. The entire ending sequence, with Toretto and his right hand man Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) driving identical cars and pulling a massive safe containing stupid amounts of money along the streets

of Rio, is certainly one of the better “Oh my god they did NOT just do that wait YES THEY DID” moments I’ve experienced in a long time. The film knows what audiences came to the theater for, and with lots and lots of explosions, cool stunts, great fights, and beautiful women, it definitely fulfills its audience’s expectations.

As for what the Bluray version of the film offers, I’m not exactly sure. I was pretty excited to see the extended version of the film, if only because I was curious what they decided to take out and was really interested in the extra footage—wait a second. What’s this it says on the back of the box? The theatrical run time is 2 hours and 11 minutes and the extended version is 2 hours…and 12 MINUTES. Are you bloody kidding me? They put an entirely separate version of the flippin’ film on the disc for, at most, an extra 60 seconds of screen time???!?!?!? I feel cheated! I’m sorry, but I sincerely doubt that seeing that crash from an extra angle, or that explosion from that great aerial shot is really worth the extra money the Bluray version costs. It’s not like the rest of the features make up for it, either! All that’s there are discussions with the director and actors about the various ridiculous sequences of the film, which sounds cool, until you realize you have to listen to action movie stars talking without a script. It’s painful. And who the @#$! decided Tyrese Gibson should get his own freaking short, called “Tyrese TV”???? That’s not entertainment! That’s torture! I demand a refund!

Does the Bluray version look pretty? Yes. But don’t buy it. You’re only cheating yourself. Get it off iTunes, or something. It may make stealing cars look pretty cool, but please don’t let Fast Five steal your money.