Review: 2 Fast 2 Furious

Paul Walker is no longer an undercover cop after the events of the first film. However, Federal agent Thom Barry requests his assistance in bringing down a drug baron named Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) who uses street racers to do the driving for his criminal exploits. Walker’s Brian O’Connor wants to recruit his childhood buddy Roman (Tyrese Gibson) to be his partner, rather than a suit who Verone will smell a mile off. Roman, by the way, is an impulsive, loudmouthed idiot who might just get them both killed, but hey, at least he’s a convincing driver, right? Eva Mendes plays an undercover agent who may have gotten too close to Verone, if you know what I mean. James Remar plays Mendes’ boss, whilst Ludacris turns up as the organiser of the street races, and Devon Aoki plays a pink car racer. ‘Coz she’s a girl.

 

The nadir of the franchise and a shameful moment in the career of the once very promising director John Singleton (“Boyz ‘N the Hood”, the underrated “Higher Learning” and “Rosewood”), this 2003 sequel hasn’t got a brain in its turbo-charged head. Even the variant on the Universal logo as it turns into a bouncy chrome wheel is pathetic. The only things Singleton cares about here in this bankrupt money-churner are cars, hippity hop, and chicks. There’s so many montages of these three things that it truly does play like a 100 minute rap video. If that’s your thing, cool I guess. It just sucks as a movie, is all, and only one of those three aforementioned things appeals to me. On that front (And rear end. Shut up, you’d make that joke too), Eva Mendes looks hot as hell and gives an OK performance. But there’s precious little else to keep me awake here.

 

The first 30 minutes is pretty much all plotless engine-revving, and a ridiculously fake tanned Cole Hauser is appallingly miscast as the villain. He can be a wonderfully intimidating villain in the right role (He was frightening in “Higher Learning”), but playing a “Scarface” wannabe named Varone is not that role. This guy is a total wimp, and Hauser is quite boring in the part, looking completely constipated. James Remar is normally a terrific character actor, but he seems really bored here, meaning the much lesser known Thom Barry needs to pick up a lot of the slack, which he does decently. Tyrese Gibson is one of my favourite things about the latter films, but here he suffers from really being the sidekick, instead of one member of a large team. In those later film’s he’s hilarious and entertaining, but here with much more screen time he’s as annoying as he is entertaining and really only steals scenes by default. He and Walker have a kind of oil and water anti-chemistry this time out. As for the waxy-looking Devon Aoki, I’m not sure which cruel person told her she’d make a good actress but on evidence here she couldn’t act her way out of a wet nappy.

 

As scripted by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (“Wanted” and “The Double”, the latter terrible, and directed by Brandt), everything in this film appears to be an excuse for something else. Ludacris living on a boat so we can get a scene at a water park-type thing because…titties. I love titties dearly, but c’mon. Tyrese Gibson idiotically getting around his court-mandated ankle bracelet by having a motor home so he can park outside a monster car show he’s participating in. And when we need another car chase? Oh it’s because Walker and Gibson want possession of the other two cars. Yeah, when I want a car, I totally engage in a street race to win it. It’s just so completely idiotic, just like those neon lights underneath all the cars. What the fuck is that all about? When you add the bright paint jobs, all it does is make the car chases look like animation or CGI.

 

Meanwhile, the stunts in the subsequent films are overly elaborate and dangerous, but here they are idiotic and reckless (Watching this after Paul Walker’s death it’s actually harder to stomach these scenes than those in his final entry, “Fast & Furious 7”). Singleton proves to be nowhere near an action director, which certainly doesn’t help. He seems to be one of these guys who thinks a car chase needs to be edited like the final moments of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western showdown.

 

The first two films in this franchise look seriously bland and dull in comparison to the later ones, and to be honest the only one I’ve really liked is “Fast & Furious 7”. The series went nowhere until it stopped being a cut-rate “Point Break” and started being “Ocean’s Eleven” with cars and stunts. This one suffers from a miscast director who brings a serious lack of energy, a miscast villain, and a boring-arse plot that is merely an excuse for the hyper-edited car chases and hippity hop video montages. I mean, someone even breakdances in the opening set piece. Stupid. And don’t even get me started on that eye-rolling title. Shame, Mr. Singleton. For shame!

 

Rating: D-