Torque: Review By carl

I'd like you to take a second to think back to the summer of 2001, the weather's warm, the girls are hot and you're sitting in a theater to watch The Fast And The Furious, those of you with an IQ can just imagine that you were dumb enough to be following my example. So anyway, remember the race is about to begin, the cars are revving and it's time for the big effects shot. Suddenly it's a close up of the drivers helmet, a pan down his body to the steering wheel, through the wheel into the engine where the fuel ignites and a flame bursts forth from the exhaust pipe, cool idea right? Now try to imagine this one, it's the summer of 2004, the girls are still hot, but this time you're in the theater to see the same film, I mean Torque a completely different film apparently. So anyway, it's once again time for the film's big effect shot. The race is starting and the camera zooms into a bike exhaust, pans up the exhaust into the engine where the fuel ignites, through the engine and up into the unpleasant arena of a biker's butt, through said biker's body before an explosion of flame emerges from his head. Yup, I know what you're thinking, can you say retarded?

If that's what you thought on reading the above description then congratulations, you have a working brain. Maybe Torque is not the film for you as it's a formulaic, overblown spectacle that doesn't realize it's only doing things people have seen before, or occasionally things that no-one has seen because no-one could ever possibly want to see, but anyway first things first I'm guessing you want to know what the film is actually about, for some reason.

Torque is a film about bikers, designed for bikers, in order to rub their combined egos to levels where their heads become as overblown as the film itself. It opens with the films hero riding into town on his bike, overtaking a car but, because all men are competitive idiots apparently, kind of annoying the drivers in the process. He then deals with the 2 guys who are twice his size in a scene that's designed to prove that bikers are, you know, really tough and macho and cool, and stuff. Turns out that this hero was chased out of town years previously by the FBI after he stole a bunch of bikes filled with some gangster's drugs. Said gangster is still upset at this, and there's also another very angry biker who doesn't like the hero for some reason. Bla bla bla Gangster sets up hero for murder of bad bikers little brother, hero decides to go on a cross country ride to get back to the shop he arrived at before he set out on his cross country ride, but the ride was necessary because both the FBI and the bad biker are hot on his heels and a cross country ride makes it more exciting, apparently.

The things is that as formulaic as all of this sounds Torque is still likely to divide families into those that think it is "The most awesomeist film EVA" and those that hate it more than overblown spectacles like 2Fast 2Furious simply because this Joseph Kahn has got to be taking the mick! Seriously now, this film should come with an elaborate disclaimer "Now children. Using motorbikes as weapons while you're riding them is not responsible. Riding a bike onto the top of a moving train, dropping between cars, riding through the carriages and then jumping in front of the train is not sane. Riding a bike at over 100MPH, wearing a helmet and having a discussion with someone around a meter away from you is, not bleeding possible!!!" From this point on I should add that the film only gets less plausible in it's use of motorbikes for the sake of action scenes that are really cool and awesome, so if the prospect of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle taking itself seriously makes you roll your eyes then don't even bother.

Now if you're still reading this then I likely wont need to go into the acting. I don't need to tell you all about how irritating Ice Cube (Anaconda) is as the wannabe gangster bad boy biker named Trey. Nor do I need to describe the Paul Walker come Keanu Reeves performance by Martin Henderson (Windtalkers) as the films Hero. I certainly don't need to go into any detail about my desires to beat Adam Scott (High Crimes) senseless for his overly goofy performance as the Lead FBI agent; because nobody left reading this actually cares about the film's quality. All you really need to know about the acting is the fact that Monet Mazur (40 Days and 40 Nights) and Christina Milian (The Wood) Look dead hot as the traditional sexy babes with tight clothes and fast bikes. They are also supported well by a host of hot extras and Jaime Pressly (Not Another Teen Movie) has a would be hot if she weren't wearing enough face pins to be rejected by the Prodigy type of role.

However if you are one of those people that has continued reading then you'll no doubt want to know how Torque fares as an overblown action movie. Put simply it sucks, it sucks in comparison to intelligent movies and it sucks in comparison to Armageddon, it just sucks hard!!! I have no idea why but for some reason the camera men decided to have a little game of hot potato with the camera and the result is a series of action scenes with editing so hyperactive it will make even seasoned bikers nauseas. I suppose it had to be done that way simply because the quick cutting goes a very small way to mask the Playstation quality blue screen work. Though to be perfectly honest, by the time you reach the finale with it's ZX81 quality effects no amount of light speed cutting can save it. It looks plain bad and as a result is neither high octane, exhilarating or even slightly fun. It's just a badly done achievement in terms of film making and a badly done achievement in terms of bad film making.

However I have to confess that I would still recommend it to a friend. It's true Torque is crap, it's bad crap that features not one iota of fun. It's also a film that I will never again see unless I'm being payed, but still the truth remains that my friends are idiots. If you are one of those people, the people that feel 2fast 2furious rocked and that Timeline was one of the best films of last year then you will indeed be making the statement that Torque is the most awesomeist film EVA, so for you I recommend it. May you hide your head in eternal shame.