In the spirit of last summer's fast car flick of choice, "Gone in 60 Seconds," this summer's car flick of choice, "The Fast and the Furious," is about, well, fast cars. After all, why complicate things?
Taking us into the underground world of illegal street racing, where macho men in souped-up Honda, Toyota and Dodge compacts compete for cash and pride, "Fast" echoes the same drag race-for-respect sentiments as "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Grease."
Admittedly, there is something inexplicably cool about watching these fast and furious drivers dropping the clutch into high gear and deploying tanks of nitrous oxide to kick their machines above 140 mph. I even felt a fleeting pang of resignation as I thought about my own automatic transmission sitting in the parking lot, devoid of tinted windows and a spoiler.
However, I was jolted out of my self-pitying reverie by the film's angry, booming soundtrack, its dizzying camera work and the laughably bad dialogue. There was no Greased Lightning in sight, no John Travolta or James Dean to root for.
In fact, the most character development you'll see in "Fast" is when the protagonist's junkyard heap is transformed into a lean, mean racing machine.
The dying-to-race Brian Earl Spilner (Paul Walker) is the flatly drawn hero with appropriately tousled blond hair and an adequately stubbled face.
The plot is just as bland, with a series of middle-of-the-road car races and chases but without any surprising twists or turns.
Of course, no fast-car movie would be complete without a woman to be wooed. The attractive Jordana Brewster plays Mia, the object of Brian's affectionate aquamarine gazes. Like all of the women in the film - the majority of whom are mini-skirted beauties cheering on the men at each race - Mia is relegated to the cliched status of an aesthetic hood ornament. Her role, whether she's waitressing at the family cafe or keeping house, is to serve food, clean up and steer clear of the action.
It turns out Mia is the younger sister of Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), L.A.'s street racing king, so Brian becomes determined to show Dom what he and his lime green Mitsubishi are made of.
But apparently Jenna Bush isn't the only one sporting a fake ID these days. Brian is actually Officer O'Connor (audible gasp!), an undercover cop trying to get the down-low on a rash of recent truck hijackings. All signs indicate that culprits hail from the street racer world, and unless they're caught pronto, the frustrated truckers may take matters into their own hands.
So if Brian wants in on "the scene" and the sister, he will have to win the respect of Dom. And, of course, that won't be easy after Dom throws the undercover cop out of his sandwich shop (hey, even street racers need day jobs) and threatens to get Brian fired from his gig at the Racer's Edge, an auto parts store.
The FBI worries that Brian's feelings for Mia will harm his professional investigation of Dom. But clearly what we really have is a classic case of the understanding hero experiencing sympathy for the criminal he's been assigned to bring down.
And not only is Dom the racer Brian will never be, but Diesel also gets to be the actor that Walker, playing the straight-laced Brian, can't quite live up to. Dom, an amalgam of hotheaded rage and cool confidence, tough guy and dependable friend, is indeed fast and furious. While Diesel is living it up in the fast lane with his character, Walker is left playing catch-up the whole way.
But rather than quibble about silly terms like "acting ability," or get drawn into a saga of love and loyalty - since there is nothing to quibble over or get drawn into in "Fast" - let us not forget the cars. Whether iWgt's just a run-of-the-mill drag race with the Ferrari in the next lane, a high-speed cop chase, or a smokin' quarter-mile stretch toward a rapidly approaching train, nearly every scene is a showcase for a pimped-out compact sporting chrome rims and colorful decals.
The ending does deliver some heightened suspense and a little more wince-inducing action than the rest of the movie. But it stops there, refusing to make any more concessions than necessary to a believable plot (question: Do you apprehend a criminal by drag racing him or arresting him while the light is still red?) or character motivation.
By the time I left the theater and arrived at the first stoplight, only a few lingering impressions of the movie remained. I looked lovingly at my automatic gearshift and thankfully at the empty lane next to mine.
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