The Motor movie genre makes hay in the summer season. We look at the two on offer this summer
Biker Boyz:
Heavily laden with gushy sentimentality and seriously lacking in any form of stimulation, this movie would fail to rouse an amoeba into movement. Even the frequent but short road races don't get the adrenalin pumping.
Despite its subject matter, this production never manages to pick up any pace, it never rips and revs into action. It's like a 49 cc moped struggling to climb a steep hill - there isn't enough torque to lift the skin off a rice pudding.
The story is moralistic but pathetic, a weakly constructed rite of passage. Kid, played by Derek Luke, sees his mechanic father getting killed while standing on the sidelines during a motorcycle race. He's then stimulated into action and wants to race bikes so he can beat the all-time racing champion and holder of the crown, Smoke, otherwise known as "King of Cali".
According to Smoke's long-held wisdom, "it don't mean shit without the crown" - "it" here is obviously taken to mean "life"! Smoke, played by Laurence Fishburne, is the leader of the Black Knights motorcycle gang.
To win the crown Kid sets up a rival gang, the bile-yellow-leather- lily-livered Biker Boyz - and sets about trying to beat Smoke.
If at this point, the viewer is hoping for some high-octane motorcycle action then he or she will be severely disappointed. Instead, the viewer is treated to a heavy dose of emotionality in which Kid battles with his mother to race motorbikes and discovers his rival, Smoke, is actually his father.
So the gritty rivalry is softened by the father's need to teach his son a valuable lesson in life - that "the difference between men and boyz are the lessons they learn".
All sounds very adolescent and puerile - and it is. It's rated 15s but even 15-year-olds would probably gag at the soppiness. The sight of so few people viewing the film and the limited number of cinemas showing it are proof enough of this.
Male African-American actors predominantly populate the movie with the odd scantily clad female thrown in to stimulate the "tough" bikers. In one scene viewers' hopes are raised by the prospect of a bikini bike wash but these hopes are rapidly dashed when it turns out the "wash" is being held to raise funds for badly needed school books for the local school. This typifies America's over-zealous politically correct need not to offend.
There are some impressive front and back wheelies but the racing is downright unrealistic. You get the distinct impression that an Incredible Hulk type is lurking behind the scenes shaking the bike furiously to make it look like it's actually hitting 180 mph.
Singing and dancing make a big appearance, prompting the thought that the cast was picked up from a discarded re-make of Fame. The movie often metamorphoses into a music video but the reassurance of it ending in three minutes is not there.
Littered with cringe-worthy one-liners such as "burn rubber and not your soul" and "if you play it safe you sorry", Biker Boyz fails to do anything for the viewer except incite a desire to leave before the finish line. - Patricia Weston
2 Fast 2 Furious
Motor movies follow the porn genre in never letting a plot get in the way of the on-screen action. This one sticks rigidly to the format, applying the good guy v bad guys storyline with stereotypical stupid foreigner baddies and good guys walking a fine line of petty crime.
A follow-up to the 2001 summer hit, The Fast and the Furious, it features the traditional ensemble act of heroes, monosyllabic dialogue and women in uniform buttock-trim mini shorts.
Yet 2 Fast 2 Furious is not as much of a turkey as we expected. In fact it's quite fun, in a chewing gum for the eyes sort of way.
These films are not expected to challenge for the Palme D'Or. The cars are the stars - the bit players the stunt drivers and, lastly, the actors.
The plot, for what there is, follows an ex-cop and his ex-con hometown friend who are enlisted by the customs officers to catch a major drug dealer in return for clearing their criminal records.
In undercover guise, our dynamic duo are recruited by a drug kingpin to retrieve dirty money and transport it at very, very high speeds. Think Smokey and the Bandit without the beer.
That's enough of the storyline. What we came to see were the cars. These feature not only in the chases but in the more controversial street races through "closed" roads.
Mitsubishi gets a good show for its Evolution 7 and Eclipse Spyder. They sit well alongside US car culture icons such as the Hemi Dodge Challenger and the Yenko Camaro.
All the cars, equipped with standard kit of dayglo body paint and nitrous oxide kits, have what it takes to fill our screens with high-speed action and impressive high-octane sound effects. And this is where, from a car movie perspective, it falls a little flat.
You go away doubting Americans' grasp of speed. They have it in straight lines but corners leave them flummoxed.
Of two major street race scenes, the first involves at most three corners and the second is a straight line race up to a barrel, a handbrake turn, then a run straight back. A well-trained chimp with a sturdy left foot could point the car in the right direction and hold it there by burying its foot on the accelerator.
Some slick gearchanging aside, throughout the movie we were meant to be mesmerised by the lightning fast speeds of these cars as they tore up the motorways and empty wide boulevards.
They do manage some slick weaving through traffic at the gravity challenging speeds of 120-140 mph. Yet, in spite of the apparent "warp speed effects" derived from the nitrous oxide button, these speeds on such wide open roads seem very much like an everyday trip on the German autobahn - minus the convoy of police cars.
But we can be too cynical. The movie delivers what it should: cheap thrills. On a long summer's night with the brain idling, it's a decent car movie filled with scantily clad ladies and over-the-top cars. Think of it as a turkey on nitrous oxide. - Michael McAleer