Why anyone would want to rip off “The Matrix” is understandable; it was a very influential movie that paved the way for a lot of really bad, and mediocre rip-offs to come for years that I would inevitably have to suffer through, but why anyone would want to rip-off “The Fast and the Furious”, a mediocre action popcorn flick fueled (no pun intended) only by Vin Diesel’s pecks and some good effects is a stunner. Like many have said, dumb studio execs tend to confuse high grosses with film quality and what “The Fast and the Furious” had was not quality. Charisma? Yes. Good effects? Granted. But quality? I’m afraid not, my friend, so why do we have to suffer through these horrible rip-offs? Directed by Joseph Kahn, who is, surprise, surprise, a music video director, composes one really bad B movie that isn’t even worthy of being called a B movie because it’s so blatantly a really long drawn out music video sans the music ad nauseum.
“Torque” is tagged with a movie label, but it really reads like a really bad music video or really long drawn out badly acted commercial on television, it’s not a movie. Now, this has all the markings of a music video, but I keep asking without anyone to give me a successful answer: why the hell do these studios always have to recruit these music video directors for action movies?! Am I talking to myself here? Seemingly there are only about ten people who read my reviews, but there must be one person who can answer my question. Music videos are five minute featurettes, a movie is a whole new ballgame but this has all the elements of a usual music video with a lot of really obnoxious shots of motorcycles, boas, busty women bathing in water, all the usual tired music video clichés that I’m just sick and tired of. When studios begin learning how to differentiate music videos from movies, that will be a glorious day, but until then “Torque” is, to put it lightly, a piece of crap.
It’s a steaming, fly infested, corn covered, piece of crap that I had one grueling time sitting through. It was an hour and a half and not even the holy hotness of Jaime Pressley and Monet Mazur could help me sit through the damn thing. A bunch of boneheaded bikers are set-up by another gang of boneheaded bikers for murder, and now an evil gang of boneheaded bikers are on the hunt for them. Blah is the word that really came to mind after watching this piece of junk. “Torque” takes place in Bruckheimer land with a lot of flashy sequences and where cops never catch on to criminals, where our heroes have great equipment and clothing with no visible source of income, and where cops are cocky and dressed in thousand dollar suits and ride around in billion dollar cars that weren’t issued by the force. It’s a world where anything is possible, even something as physics defying as driving a motorcycle atop a moving train, and far-fetched as driving motorcycles through city streets without running anyone over.
It’s a B movie right off the back, because with dialogue like “You got loud pipes, but you ain’t sayin’ nothin’!” it’s hard to believe this could be anything but. B movie material it is, but entertaining, it ain’t. With such a vapid plot and all style and little substance, “Torque” is the longest hour and a half I’ve ever experienced watching a movie. And, oddly enough everyone is twice as bad an actor here including Jaime Pressley who was never Oscar material, but still managed to hold her own in movies, and Ice Cube whose evolved as an actor, is just awful here. He’s wildly over the top, obnoxious, and just the bane of this film with his ridiculous character. All the while, throw in some obvious product placements, cheesy stunts and comic book action and you have a product not fit to fill my movie collection. This is awful. Loud, clunky, derivative and full of flashy eye candy with no substance, “Torque” is a low grade really bad action flick without a single brain cell in its head and plot holes galore. Awful.