"Torque"

Martin Henderson
Ice Cube
Monet Mazur
Adam Scott
Matt Schulze
Will Yun Lee
Jaime Pressly
Max Beesley
Jay Hernandez
Christina Milian
Faizon Love
Fredro Starr

PG13           84min           2004


“Torque” is the “Fast and the Furious” on motorcycles, it’s about a biker exiled to Thailand comes back to California to get the girl and correct the situation that exiled him to Thailand in the first place.

Although it’s from the same producers as “Fast and the Furious” Torque tries to hard to separate itself from its cousin. It’s a basic story with bike as the highlight and nothing else. It displays some of the most over the action sequences on film.

I think of “Torque” as Fast and the Furious: Torque, just another one of the stylized racing films. One of the problems with “Torque” is that it tries to separate itself from “Fast and the Furious”. For one it stars Matt Schulze one of the stars of “Fast and the Furious.” One the commentary they talk crap about the Fast franchise until Matt Schulze speaks up. In the open sequence the motorcycle pass a sign that it spins to form ‘Cars Suck’. Second if it weren’t for the Fast franchise they would have never been greenlit. Never SH*t where you butter your bread, it just makes you look like an ass.

This is a basic redemption story with bikes as the highlight of the film. As the case with the rest of the franchise the machines are the highlights of the film; but where as most people are fascinated with the cars, the bikes came of as nothing more than stylized motorcycles. “Torque” came off more of a western set in modern times using motorcycles instead of horses.

“Torque” displays some of the most over the top action sequences of all the Fast franchise. At least with the sequences in the Fast and the Furious auto films most of the sequences could be believable. When Monet Mazur and Jaime Pressly joust there is nothing believable about that sequence, you really have to suspend you disbelieve to go with that sequence. Then at the end with motorcycle chase the viewer is to believe that they are going so fast that everything else is a blur and they still navigate traffic with ease. That at those speed Martin Henderson as enough strength to flip this bike in the air and land perfectly on Matt Schulze.

Please if you want to suspense our belief in reality and go with the reality you’re trying to portray at least make sensible. This isn’t the Matrix; yes some rules can be bent but they can’t be broken. This is a movie that tries too hard to be too cool. It does have a cast of characters that does make this film entertaining to watch.

I give it 3/5 Gs.