Torque
| Year: | 2003 |
| Director: | Jospeh Kahn |
| Cast: | Martin Henderson, Ice Cube |
The result of the constant amping up of every hallmark in action movies - everything is overly bright, garish, corny, pseudo machismo. It's the worst kind of Bruckheimer-style action thriller, dressed up like a video game, so much so that the entire climax is done in CG; containing stunts and driving that could never be done in real life.
Or maybe it's just that because they could only afford Martin Henderson as their leading man, they couldn't afford to cordon off any LA streets.
If cinema was a meal, this would be like extracting every ounce of sugar, salt and preservatives from your dinner and injecting it straight into your veins. No opportunity is missed to make everything big, bad, and loud, from the cheesy snarling villains to the oh-so-cool moves of the hero and the flash of the heroine's g string at the top of her pants when she sits down (because she's got that sexy trailer trash thing happneing, y'know?)
Henderson - who should hang his head in embarrassment that this will be his big break into leading man status after playing second fiddle to Naomi Watts in The Ring - is a motorcycle rider who returns to his dustbowl hometown (a truck stop on an endless highway populated by various creeps, thugs, drug dealers, low lives and fit chicks who walk around in bikinis and shake their arses at the camera in wet T shirt competitions).
He has to hook back up with the babe he left behind, avoid the corrupt cops on his tail and beat the bad guys - routine stuff for movie heroes who's every move just exhudes cool (they're so cool they even litter, throwing their beer bottles away to smash everywhere - this, and driving at breakneck speeds, make great movies for kids).
And in the middle of it all is gangbanger turned hero Ice Cube, sneering his every word comically.
Unmitigated, unprocessed, indigestible trash. The worst of everything that's starting to make the genre unbearable. And you know it's a former music video helmer for hire behind the megaphone when they have to advertise it as being 'from the producer of Fast and the Furious and xXx'. they even ripped off the 'POV racing through the engine' trick from their own movies.
Or maybe it's just that because they could only afford Martin Henderson as their leading man, they couldn't afford to cordon off any LA streets.
If cinema was a meal, this would be like extracting every ounce of sugar, salt and preservatives from your dinner and injecting it straight into your veins. No opportunity is missed to make everything big, bad, and loud, from the cheesy snarling villains to the oh-so-cool moves of the hero and the flash of the heroine's g string at the top of her pants when she sits down (because she's got that sexy trailer trash thing happneing, y'know?)
Henderson - who should hang his head in embarrassment that this will be his big break into leading man status after playing second fiddle to Naomi Watts in The Ring - is a motorcycle rider who returns to his dustbowl hometown (a truck stop on an endless highway populated by various creeps, thugs, drug dealers, low lives and fit chicks who walk around in bikinis and shake their arses at the camera in wet T shirt competitions).
He has to hook back up with the babe he left behind, avoid the corrupt cops on his tail and beat the bad guys - routine stuff for movie heroes who's every move just exhudes cool (they're so cool they even litter, throwing their beer bottles away to smash everywhere - this, and driving at breakneck speeds, make great movies for kids).
And in the middle of it all is gangbanger turned hero Ice Cube, sneering his every word comically.
Unmitigated, unprocessed, indigestible trash. The worst of everything that's starting to make the genre unbearable. And you know it's a former music video helmer for hire behind the megaphone when they have to advertise it as being 'from the producer of Fast and the Furious and xXx'. they even ripped off the 'POV racing through the engine' trick from their own movies.