2 Fast 2 Furious is 2 silly to take 2 seriously. Of course, this is the silly summer season, so the movie will undoubtably prove to be a box-office adrenalin rush. Especially in a summer with even more sequels than usual.
Fans already know this is the sequel to The Fast And The Furious, the surprise 2001 hit that has been cited in some teens-only polls as their favourite movie of all time.
That clearly makes the critical response, to both the original and the sequel, irrelevant. 2 Fast 2 Furious has a built-in youth audience that gets off on sheer speed, the mocking of authority and the tame sexiness of buff bods. Sophisticated plotting or true character development would just get in the way -- so neither element is in play in either flick.
The sequel moves from California to Florida. Ex-copper and speed-demon Paul Walker is back, but without Vin Diesel, whose character is referred to only in passing as "the guy" whom Walker let go free in the original as a rites of passage.
This time around, Walker's cocky character is arrested for street racing in the Miami area. Combined with outstanding charges in California, he is in deep enough trouble that the cops can blackmail him into serving on an undercover operation. Walker enlists a childhood buddy as his partner.
This character, a cliched, angry young black American with an extensive if petty criminal record, is played by Guess? model, hip-hop star and former MTV VJ Tyrese Gibson (or simply Tyrese, as he is known in the credits).
Walker and Tyrese have good chemistry as battling buddies who team up, when it counts, to outwit the villains. Both of them appear to be extraordinarily adept, fast-and-furious stunt drivers (Walker trained at a pro level between the movies and now does more of his own on-screen driving).
In another cliche, their job is to run money for a sadistic Latino drug lord in Miami (Cole Hauser). Why this money-run has to be staged in precisely this way defies logic -- but without this twist there is no pay-off to the movie.
2 Fast 2 Furious is essentially a series of street races. In each one, our heroes have to outwit either stupid cops (that's usually easy) or vicious baddies (always harder). The races are repetitive yet obviously thrilling for a few seconds.
Director John Singleton (and what is the brilliant young filmmaker who gave us Boyz N The Hood doing wasting his time on unoriginal sequels like this?) makes everything look and sound slick and powerful and fast-paced. The brain rarely has time to say: "Hey! That doesn't make sense!" Particularly when men walk away barely injured from dead-stop car crashes that occur at more than 120 mph.
Instead, we are quickly diverted, primarily by fresh young faces (and bodies), such as rising actress Eva Mendes, model Devon Aoki and rapper Chris (Ludacris) Bridges. Singleton always populates his films with interesting people, even when they have little to do but dress up the set.
It is that kind of movie: Style over substance. In other words, a potential summer blockbuster.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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