PEACH WEEKENDER

‘Fast & Furious 6,’ starring the latePaul Walker, comes to DVD, Blu-ray

Jordana Brewster, as Mia, and the late Paul Walker, as Brian, make a break for it in ‘Fast & Furious 6,’ the latest installment of the global blockbuster franchise built on speed.

GILES KEYTE/UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

Jordana Brewster, as Mia, and the late Paul Walker, as Brian, make a break for it in ‘Fast & Furious 6,’ the latest installment of the global blockbuster franchise built on speed.

The passing of Paul Walker on Nov. 30 cast a grim shadow over his film work, especially the Fast & Furious movies for which he was most famous.

Long before he died as a passenger in a fiery auto accident, the sixth movie in the series was set for release on DVD and Blu-ray this past Tuesday. The film’s studio, Universal, has said an unspecified portion of the proceeds will go to Reach Out WorldWide, the charity Walker helped start.

Those revenues should be sizable considering the success of the film series. Fast & Furious 6 ($29.98 DVD, $34.98 Blu-ray / DVD / digital combo) took in close to $800 million worldwide in theaters, adding to a total for the franchise exceeding $2.3 billion. The sixth film — which has a host of returning characters in pursuit of an international criminal (Luke Evans) — was so certain of success that its final scenes teased the seventh film.

That was in production when Walker died, and work has been postponed while all involved deal with his loss and consider how to address it in the movie. The Blu-ray of 6 includes a “first look” scene from the seventh film following up on the death of a character at the end of 6; it does provide a possible setup for O’Conner’s passing in the next movie, but it’s still chilling to see Walker talking about funerals.

The films were more than Walker, of course. Vin Diesel also became a huge star thanks to the franchise, and the cast overall was a diverse mix of performers. There were also the incredible stunts — including ones involving cars and a cargo plane, and a tank chase in what is clearly a nothing’s-too-crazy approach to action. And the glorious excess of the stunts made the more ridiculous aspects of the plot forgivable.

But watching it again in the wake of Walker’s death is not easy. The car chases now have a grim resonance; as I said when the movie was in theaters, the action sequences are so enormous and explosive that it’s astounding when characters walk away from them with so little damage.

And Walker’s character, Brian O’Conner, had given the series one of its main emotional arcs as he evolved from an undercover cop to a family man, both as a father and as a part of a crook-chasing team. 

The least successful movie in the series is the third, which is also the one that Walker skipped (and Diesel had only a cameo). He is so key to the series that Walker’s passing demands a strong farewell for O’Conner.

But if you can put aside all that, Fast & Furious 6 is exciting and fun, pure escapism of the loud and lively kind. The Blu-ray release includes an “extended edition,” although it is by no means clear what that means; the running time is almost exactly the same as for the theatrical version. (Universal similarly proclaimed an “extended edition” of Fast Five that ran only a minute longer than the original version.)

Extras include deleted scenes, a making-of segment, a brief look at Diesel on the set and commentary by director Justin Lin. Besides the seventh-movie teaser, the Blu-ray adds other making-of featurettes.

Down video road

The starkly effective Fruitvale Station will be a Digital HD download on Dec. 31. It will come to DVD, Blu-ray, pay-per-view, and On Demand on Jan. 14.

The Oscar-winning The Killing Fields will make its Blu-ray debut in a 30th-anniversary edition on Jan. 7. 

That same date, House of Lies: Season Two comes to DVD. Baggage Claim will be on DVD and Blu-ray on Feb. 4. Veep: The Complete Second Season comes to Blu-ray and DVD on March 25.