TB4000
01-16-2004, 10:48 PM
I went to see Torque tonight...and God help me, I liked it a little. Yes, I deserve to be drawn and quartered, stretched on the rack, and boiled in oil. After all the cracks I made about this movie before actually seeing it, I am ashamed to call myself a pseudo-hypocrite. I say psuedo because there was a LOT I didn't care for in the movie, but it wasn't as mind-numbing as the reviews are making it out to be.
Point blank, I'll say this...Joseph Kahn's directorial debut doesn't look or feel cheap. Directing countless hip hop videos has obviously paid off in the long run for the man(who has a quick cameo in his own movie, of course), who knows how to make even the goofiest stunts look cool. Seeing the experimental Y2K blaze down L.A.'s streets, do a damn back flip and burst into flames(I don't think I really spoiled anything for u) and have the hero walk off like it's nothing...only a music video director can do that with a straight face.
Part of the reason Torque wasn't so bad is because of the dialouge and plot. After the Fast and Furious series and Biker Boyz, I assumed this was gonna be another basic PG-13 race flick, where the main character has to prove himself to the thugged out, hard as nails street toughs, only to be accepted at the end. Nuh uh. In Torque, the main character/bike repairman Ford(Martin Henderson, playing the Paul Walker role from Fast and Furious, obviously) has been in Thailand for the past year due to some unexpected difficulties with a client who decided to store crystal meth in some bikes he wanted him to repair. Flash forward, he's back in good 'ol Cali ready to hit the mean streets with his boys, Dalton(Jay Hernandez) and Val(Will Yun Lee, my boy from Witchblade). Problem is, the characters that stashed the drugs want it back. Ford, being the good man that he is, promptly rejects their demand, and in retaliation, the bad guys kill the brother of the leader of a rival motorcycle gang, who as we all know from the commercials, is Mr. Ice Cube himself. Right about now you can tell it's about to get all Three's Company on your ass, with huge misunderstandings about what Ford has done, with Cube and his boys right on his tail. Now if Mr. Furley popped up out of nowhere I wouldn't have been surprised.
I did say the movie wasn't 100% evil, and it wasn't. They do manage to slip a couple funny lines into the movie, like a rip on the original Fast and the Furious, and an ode to one of Ice Cube's most popular cuts(you know which one...involves sodomizing the police), and Will Yun Lee's character does manage to make the movie less dull with his sarcasm about the whole thing going on and his little fling with Christina Milian. Also, I must mention the bikes...I ain't a motorcycle gearhead like my dad, I'm more of a car person, but damn it if these rides are not decent. Aprilia Mille RSV. Triumph TT 600. Honda CBR 954. And that experimental Y2K I mentioned earlier. They actually had more personality than the actors.
Now to the rest of the movie...lord have mercy on my soul. If I see one more tracking shot leading into the engine of a car or bike as a person presses the booster for the NO2, I'm gonna start calling up directors and telling them personally to cut that shit out. If I see talented actors that have been in past movies acting like they're damn wooden boards, refer to the statement before this one. The worst of it came towards the end, when Mr. Hero's love interest has a motorcycle fight(you heard me, a motorcycle fight like in the Simpsons) with the villain's goth chick girlfriend who gets horny when she sees someone get hurt. They actually get into a jousting tournament in an alley with the bikes, wheels in the air, smacking each other in the face with the back wheels....whoever told Mr. Kahn to add that in, please take your cyanide pill now and without haste.
I hate those people that say, "Well, it was a popcorn movie, you just go in and turn off your brain." A good movie will not make you turn off your brain to enjoy it, it'll make you think without you even knowing you're thinking, and Torque, while it's cool as hell to look at, pretty much knows you ain't planning on thinking whilst you're in the theatre.
Point blank, I'll say this...Joseph Kahn's directorial debut doesn't look or feel cheap. Directing countless hip hop videos has obviously paid off in the long run for the man(who has a quick cameo in his own movie, of course), who knows how to make even the goofiest stunts look cool. Seeing the experimental Y2K blaze down L.A.'s streets, do a damn back flip and burst into flames(I don't think I really spoiled anything for u) and have the hero walk off like it's nothing...only a music video director can do that with a straight face.
Part of the reason Torque wasn't so bad is because of the dialouge and plot. After the Fast and Furious series and Biker Boyz, I assumed this was gonna be another basic PG-13 race flick, where the main character has to prove himself to the thugged out, hard as nails street toughs, only to be accepted at the end. Nuh uh. In Torque, the main character/bike repairman Ford(Martin Henderson, playing the Paul Walker role from Fast and Furious, obviously) has been in Thailand for the past year due to some unexpected difficulties with a client who decided to store crystal meth in some bikes he wanted him to repair. Flash forward, he's back in good 'ol Cali ready to hit the mean streets with his boys, Dalton(Jay Hernandez) and Val(Will Yun Lee, my boy from Witchblade). Problem is, the characters that stashed the drugs want it back. Ford, being the good man that he is, promptly rejects their demand, and in retaliation, the bad guys kill the brother of the leader of a rival motorcycle gang, who as we all know from the commercials, is Mr. Ice Cube himself. Right about now you can tell it's about to get all Three's Company on your ass, with huge misunderstandings about what Ford has done, with Cube and his boys right on his tail. Now if Mr. Furley popped up out of nowhere I wouldn't have been surprised.
I did say the movie wasn't 100% evil, and it wasn't. They do manage to slip a couple funny lines into the movie, like a rip on the original Fast and the Furious, and an ode to one of Ice Cube's most popular cuts(you know which one...involves sodomizing the police), and Will Yun Lee's character does manage to make the movie less dull with his sarcasm about the whole thing going on and his little fling with Christina Milian. Also, I must mention the bikes...I ain't a motorcycle gearhead like my dad, I'm more of a car person, but damn it if these rides are not decent. Aprilia Mille RSV. Triumph TT 600. Honda CBR 954. And that experimental Y2K I mentioned earlier. They actually had more personality than the actors.
Now to the rest of the movie...lord have mercy on my soul. If I see one more tracking shot leading into the engine of a car or bike as a person presses the booster for the NO2, I'm gonna start calling up directors and telling them personally to cut that shit out. If I see talented actors that have been in past movies acting like they're damn wooden boards, refer to the statement before this one. The worst of it came towards the end, when Mr. Hero's love interest has a motorcycle fight(you heard me, a motorcycle fight like in the Simpsons) with the villain's goth chick girlfriend who gets horny when she sees someone get hurt. They actually get into a jousting tournament in an alley with the bikes, wheels in the air, smacking each other in the face with the back wheels....whoever told Mr. Kahn to add that in, please take your cyanide pill now and without haste.
I hate those people that say, "Well, it was a popcorn movie, you just go in and turn off your brain." A good movie will not make you turn off your brain to enjoy it, it'll make you think without you even knowing you're thinking, and Torque, while it's cool as hell to look at, pretty much knows you ain't planning on thinking whilst you're in the theatre.