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 TV mainstay Joseph Kahn's feature film debut,
"Torque", earned a pitiful 2.7 out of a possible 10 points at IMDB.com
(as of this writing), which makes it worst than Vanilla Ice's "Cool as
Ice" and slightly better than "Teen
Wolf Too". Is it because "Torque" is such a monumental
failure? Not really. What it does say, however, is that the vast majority of
moviegoers have never ridden a motorcycle before. They could somewhat empathize
with driving really fast in a heavily modified import car ala "The
Fast and the Furious". But a motorcycle? Most of the world's population
is too chicken for a sports bike, which may explain why no one cut
"Torque" any slack.
Martin Henderson ("The
Ring") leads the leather-clad cast as Cary Ford, a maverick biker who
has just returned to the California desert after 6 months of hiding in Thailand.
Ford is a wanted man: by the FBI, a rival gang led by Henry James (Matt
Schulze), and his irritated girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur). In record time, Ford
manages to reacquaint himself with riding buddies Dalton (Jay Hernandez) and Val
(Will Yun Lee), mend fences with Shane, get on the even worst side of James, and
makes a new enemy in black biker leader Trey (Ice Cube). Things get worst for
our hero when Trey's ill-tempered kid brother ends up dead and Ford is the prime
suspect.
The mere existence of "Torque" owes to the fact
that it was made by the same people who convinced young Americans that the
presence of flashy import cars going really fast were all you needed to stitch a
movie together. In a funny gag, a character in "Torque" utters the
same line that Vin Diesel's character utters in "Furious". It's a line
that got a lot of airplay because it was also in that movie's trailer. In
response to the line being uttered here, a character groans, "That's the
dumbest thing I've ever heard." I have to agree. I thought it was dumb when
Diesel's character said it the first time.
Being that "Torque" is constructed out of silly
putty, it's no surprise that it falls back on some rather annoying conceits.
Even when characters are going 90 miles per hour on a motorcycle and wearing
helmets, they can still converse normally. Really, it's quite amazing.
Insanely stupid and completely unbelievable, but pretty amazing that the movie
sees absolutely nothing wrong with it. The other conceit is that sports bikes
weigh as much as BMX bicycles. This allows characters to do outrageous things
like spin their bikes, jump it over train tracks, and even -- as shown in the
trailer -- hop onto the back of a speeding train.
It's all deliciously over-the-top, employing the technique
of transforming a character from flesh and blood to CGI in mid-stride. Then
again, "Torque" was probably designed to be outrageously cartoonish
from the word go. I hesitate to even call the script by Matt Johnson an actual
screenplay. The plot isn't worth mentioning, but the wild action and the
oh-so-pretty cast is. Martin Henderson definitely proves to be a better actor
and more viable action star than the Keanu Reeves impersonator Paul Walker. And
there's the impossibly gorgeous and sexy Monet Mazur ("Stark
Raving Mad") to give this visual eye candy of a movie even more yummy
treats.
On the other hand, rapper turned actor Ice Cube seems to
have forgotten that he once learned to act in "Three
Kings" if his performance here and in "Ghost
of Mars" is evidence. Johnson's script even manages to throw in one of
those FBI agents who are always wrong into the mix, and this time the FBI agent
even has a black, sassy female partner. But the most curious thing about
"Torque" might be the presence of British flags in the background.
None of the characters were British, so one has to wonder about the extensive
cameos by Union Jack. Of course these thoughts were only interesting because the
movie is just so superficial.
"Torque" is an idiotic but strangely exciting
ride. It's no worst than "The Fast and the Furious", and fans of
motorcycles will get a kick out of all the gravity-defying (not to mention
logic-defying) nonsense they put those sports bikes through. It's also much
better than the snooze-inducing bike movie "Biker
Boyz", but that's not saying a lot.
In any case, whatever millions they spent on the stunts and
the army of motorcycle stuntmen they probably got it all back during the
chick/motorcycle fight toward the end, where two soda ads are featured so
blatantly as to be a tad embarrassing.
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