2 Fast 2 Furious: Review By Corey

What do you do when the leading man of the hottest new franchise in town decides to decline an offer even after a huge-paying check offer? It's quite simple, actually. You take the second leading man, make him a real "Top Dog", throw him in the mix of some the best R'n'B artists/Rappers, and a touch of half-naked women and you have your sequel to the 2001 car-hit: "The Fast and the Furious".

If you thought the first instalment fired out a few of your brain cells, then prepare for them all to blown in this action-packed, mindless sequel to the 2001 hit, "The Fast and the Furious". Back in 2003 when the sequel was first coming out, I was a tad disappointed that it wouldn't feature Vin Diesel in the film at all. To me, Vin Diesel's character Dominic Toretto was what made the first movie so damn entertaining. People who believe "2Fast 2Furious" and "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" were made to hold off Vin Diesel's big comeback are wrong, and in fact, its because Diesel turned down the sequels and they just wanted to create a new space without him. It was after when Diesel decided to return for the fourth instalment, "Fast and Furious". This time, however, only featuring one character from the first movie, this doesn't exactly live up to being as great as the first one. But, that also doesn't mean the movie wasn't explosive, fast, and furious. It manages to keep the audience entertained from beginning to end, even if none of the characters actually make you care. Your just tagging along for the ride, and that was the film's main intentions.

(Spoilers)

Brian O'Conner returns and after his actions in the film's predecessor, has been kicked out of the force. Still managing to find a few races downtown, he slowly starts to feel his life to become empty. No longer with Mia due to his betrayal against her and her brother, Dom, he has been all alone since the last time we saw him. After a recent race goes awry, and O'Conner is brought in by the F.B.I. and forced to work with them undercover once more, in order to have his freedom. Brian's latest assignment isn't easy, and it may be more difficult than his recent one in "The Fast and the Furious". Refusing to work the assignment with a dorky F.B.I. agent, O'Conner goes to a friend he'd never expect to see again his life: Roman Pearce. An old friend making cash off demolition derby rounds has more of a past with Brian than the audience expects in the beginning. Brian, who betrayed Roman back in the past and got him three years in prison lost Roman's respect for life. Brian seems pretty good at betraying people, doesn't he? It's weird how his character is so likeable. Anyways, when O'Conner convinces Roman to work the job with him, the two set off a fast and furious ride that's as predictable as they come. Their assignment: Go undercover and get a job working with a rich local drug exporter named Carter Verone. To get the job, of course, it involves cars. Well...duh! This one might not be mostly about the racing but cars are of course involved all over the place. The way the cookie crumbles with predictable sequels like this, obviously Brian and Roman are hired easily. On the job, Brian and Pearce meet Monica Fuentes, a sexy, Spanish agent (We've seen that 100s of times, but hey, I'm not complaining), who's undercover as Verone's girlfriend. Of course their's a love attraction to every movie, and Brian quickly becomes attracted to Monica. What I found odd and misleading was how Brian never actually feels any guilt for his actions against Mia. It's almost as if he completely forgot about her in this movie. I didn't really like that key factor. Anyhow, as the two work with Verone their cover becomes blown out of proportion, and as Brian does best, he goes against the law and takes matters into his own hands. It might not be as successful plot-wise as the first, never doing enough to grasp attention from the viewers, but it's fast, furious, and definitely a fun-ride.

Paul Walker returns for his role as Brian O'Conner, being the only one returning from the sequel. Not having the chemistry with Vin Diesel's Dom Tortetto, it was hard to like Brian as much as I did in the first one. I didn't really care for Brian and Roman's chemistry, it just didn't click the way Brian and Dom's did from the first one that was so memorable. Roman Pearce, played by Tyrese Gibson, is one of the most annoying performances given from the year 2003. Honestly, it's not that Roman is hated by my standards, but, I just didn't see how he fit in this movie. I found it unbelievable that he and Brian grew up as best friends and the whole story behind Brian betraying Pearce wasn't believable enough. I felt like Roman was just a fill-in for Diesel because he wouldn't take part in the sequel, so the writers tried too hard to create another bald-badass but failed miserably. His character being randomly thrown into the series was just a bad choice by my judgement and it was a little hard to believe the F.B.I. would let a convict work with Brian on an important undercover-assignment. But, then again, this is a mindless action-flick so I won't bash on some of the little factors too much. Eva Mendes as Monica was a good choice in my opinion, even if I didn't care too much for her character. She was typical, sexy agent we've seen more than once, so I wasn't intrigued by her, but, I was glad no one was put for the role. Eva Mendes gets the sexy part down perfectly, and she isn't a bad actress at all. Instead of a movie like this casting a mindless actress looking to show off her body, at least Mendes worked with the lines a little bit, even if they weren't anything special. Cole Hauser (K-Ville) plays the villian in the film, and seeing him as the bad-guy before, I can say he fit the role pretty well. He isn't bad in a scary way, but, bad in a smart way. I think nerdy, villains will thought-out plans are always the best. Not the ones that just kill to kill. As for the film's acting, none of them actually have a great script to work with, so it's hard to really judge them professionally. They all do the best to their extent, so I'll give them props on that. But, nothing from this sequel can compare to the first instalment, so everything from the first movie...just imagine a little worse from this one.

Michael Brandt and Derek Haas don't do the best job they can to create a script with entertaining dialog between it's characters like the first one successfully did. Instead, they focus more on have twice the fast-paced action and twice the fury. A story that doesn't actually have much to do with racing didn't really bother me at all. I liked how they developed something beyond different from the first, it was nice to see that from a sequel. But, the way the story was paced and moved-along didn't seem to click the way it could have. Like I already mentioned, bringing in new characters like Roman and even Tej, played by Ludacris himself, just threw the movie down a bit. A highlight from the script, though, is they are successful at making the movie just as fun as the first with its brainless action-sequences. The viewer of the film can at least enjoy that. "Boyz n the Hood" and "Four Brothers" director John Singleton takes over for Rob Cohen for the sequel. While he doesn't succeed like Cohen did with the special night-time effects and flashy color-schemes, he does manage to give us good shots of Miami, and that's about it. I can't say that he does anything special here with the material to make me actually care or notice any directorial skills. He gets the job done, though, and I guess that's all that matters for a movie like this.

All and all, "2Fast 2Furious" lives nowhere near in the quality level that it's predecessor did. The cars aren't as flashy (actually, I didn't care for any of the cars in this. Badly painted with bright, girly colors. Not my style), the story isn't as intriguing, and the dialog isn't as entertaining as it was from the first. Vin Diesel not being in this is truly what brought this movie down, and that becomes obvious because the next actually decent film from this franchise doesn't happen until Diesel's return in "Fast and Furious". I say see it just to be caught-up with the series, but, this is probably the worst one in my own opinion.

Don't forget to check out my review for "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" coming soon!

Thanks for the read!

-Screeny!