DVD Torque (Full Screen Edition)

I don't even know why I rented this movie. I'll be the first to tell you that beyond BT's work with the soundtrack, I found little redeeming in The Fast And The Furious. I didn't even bother to see 2 Fast 2 Furious. I sat through 5 minutes of Biker Boyz and laughed the whole time at it before deciding it wasn't worth watching. But for some reason, when I started watching Torque, I started smirking. Before I knew it, I was grinning like an idiot and enjoying this completely and utterly absurd guilty pleasure.

The plot? Not that it matters in a movie like this, but the basic concept is this guy Ford (Martin Henderson) comes home after spending some months in Thailand to take care of some things that have been hanging over his head. See, it seems he skipped town when some stuff regarding motorcycles, drugs and his hot babe went awry. So he's back to try and fix things, but of course, things get way worse when the little brother of Ice Cube's biker gang gets offed in a dirty bathroom, and Ford gets set up to take the fall. It's predictable, it's derivative, and it's merely a tool to link the racing / fighting / fighting-while-racing scenes together. Director Joseph Kahn, a veteran of, surprise, music videos, bestows his big-screen debut with an insane amount of polish and gloss. To his credit, Kahn does have a good eye for the action, and as a result the completely impossible stunt pieces look great. Kahn actually has a sense of timing with his effects and slow-motion shots, giving some method to this total madness.

The action figures...er, actors? They stand, zoom (zoom) around, pose, look pretty, drop groan-worthy one-liners left and right, and generally have a good time. It's about as much as one can expect from a flick like this.

So what sets Torque apart from its equally moronic brethren? The fact that it doesn't take itself seriously. Kahn and his cast know they're not making "real" movie, or at least seem to. Everything is played up for a sight gag, and even the script, as dumb as it is, has enough sense to poke fun at itself. "I live my life a quarter-mile at a time," Ford says at one point in the film, to which his cuter-than-Christmas co-star Monet Mazur responds, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." YES!!!

So grab yourself a brew, a big bowl of popcorn, or nachos, or pizza, or whatever, and kick your brain's kick-stop down. Then turn up the volume, sit back, and enjoy 80 minutes of CGI-enhanced stuntwork, slow-motion effets, zoom (zoom... Yeah, I've seen those Mazda commercials too many times...) zooming cameras, gorgeous women, macho men, and enough comedy, more intentional than not, to please even the most jaded critic. Like John Carpenter's Big Trouble In Little China, Torque does everything with its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, and thanks to that, is more fun than it has any right to be.

Nothing was new, original, or worth watching if you saw and liked xXx, The Fast and the Furious, and 2 Fast, 2 Furious because you will get nothing more for Torque than a good two stars lower than you rated those previous movies. This movie did TERRIBLE in the box office compared to the other three.

Ice Cube is no Vin Diesel (not even Tyrese for that matter), and Martin Henderson is a much older and more average version of Paul Walker. The only near-leading lady (if you don't count the 5 minute cameo of the pretty Christina Milian) is easily upstaged by all the extras. So obviously this copy-cat movie isn't even saved by a good looking cast.

The acting was very average, but that's to be expected since not many members of the cast have a long movie credit list. The one-liners were downright silly at times, not that there were many to being with.

The basic plot was a biker guy (after coming back from 6 months in Thailand running from the police) gets framed for a murder by another group of bikers because "Ford" (Martin, our main character) won't return the other-bikers' bikes that have drugs in them. Did I mention the man they killed is the brother of the leader in ANOTHER biker gang (this gang happens to be a -ridiculously- urban group for a gang who's in the middle of nowhere) and he goes after Ford too? The gallant Ford, his two friends and his girlfriend have to clear his name. Of course, cars are blown up, people die, car/bike chases ensue and all that jazz.

It sounds complicated because the movie (obviously) tries to hard but the movie is surprisingly (err...well not THAT surprisingly) forgettable.

I generously gave it 2 Stars because it reminded me to give even more credit to xXx and the t.F.a.t.F. and it's sequel. The blatant (and repeated) stealing of the great ending computer generated scene in xXx and it's -desperate- attempt to have more dazzling action scenes than The Fast and the Furious made three years prior to Torque.

This movie doesn't succeed, in any way. Maybe four years ago, but not after the handfuls of better action and action/drama flicks that have hit the box office in the past three.