�Girls don�t like boys - they love cars and money� so sing Good Charlotte. Mmm, and so do the lads.
So the original �Fast and the Furious� made a star of Vin Diesel, but he isn�t missed. Paul Walker is still the mainman boy racer who makes the most of his gorgeous mean machine by street racing for kicks and a shit load of dirty US dollars.
There are times when the action and plot seem way too conveniently similar to �Bad Boys.� Both movies are set in the hot hot heat of Florida and both implicate drugs and their apparent disadvantage to any �Mr. Bigs� slyly pulling the strings. Who bite the bullet in the end.
BUT!!!� To be fair this movie is as flashy and fittingly as racy as fuck. It�s pure gloss, sheer entertainment and has so clearly achieved every objective it set out to. Interestingly, it�s directed by John Singleton who is otherwise probably best known for his insightful social-drama �Boyz in the Hood.�
Personally I couldn�t care less how my car looks and am fond of blowing my engine up because I�m lazy arsed when I should really be checking out my oil and water levels.
If not for the cars, �2 Fast 2 Furious� still has to be seen for one torture scene in particular in which �Mr Big� gets to grips with a defector by harshly lobbing a ravenous rat in a bucket, before turning it upside down to form an air-tight seal with the rim and the bloke�s chest. If the geezer with rat shit in his belly button don�t talk soon, the idea is that the rat�s going to go crazy and eat into his chest to break on through to the other side. Understandably though, the man talks just as Roland takes his first bite � which sounds to be the deepest.
Oh, and there�s one must-see stunt that�s more ridiculous than all the stupid Bond stunts put together. Paul Walker + car + convenient ramp from mainland = Paul Walker + car + nice parking on a boat�s back!!!
BUT!!!� Just like I thought �XXX� would suck but didn�t, this action-thriller is so slick and fast it�s a wonder it�s not way ahead of its time.
Marks! Set!� And, dutifully, after the movie the patrons vacated the car park in their flash cars at top speed with McDonalds drinks cartons streaming behind them in the heat of the summer, in the torrential rain of the worst storm I�ve ever had to drive my 2.1 Ford Fiesta �Rebuild� home in. But hey what�s the rush? It isn�t the movies. (STEVE RUDD)