Good concept, poorly executed.

Fresh and Exciting

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Torque (2004): Dir: Joseph Kahn / Cast: Martin Henderson, Ice Cube, Monet Mazur, Jay Hernandez, Adam Scott: There is not a single character in this stupid film that has the maturity level above a fourth grader. Everybody wants to fight and when they're done fighting they like to ride their bikes until they can find reason to fight again. Title symbolizes an emotional rush or energy but the screenplay has all the energy of a third avenue drunk. Director Joseph Kahn films it as if he was making a commercial for motorcycles. Martin Henderson returns home after a long absence but trouble strikes when old enemies make demands. Ice Cube plays a gang leader whose brother is murdered by another gang but he is led to believe that Henderson did it. They will clash back and forth until viewers want to bury their faces in their hands and cry. Monet Mazur plays a previous girlfriend of Henderson's. She is basically there to bang him and make the enemies really mad. The rest of the cast is about as lively as a flat tire in a monster truck stunt. Action scenes look terrific but to what avail? Without a good screenplay to back them up, it is just a bunch of racing and crashing and fighting. For all the ambition that went into this crap, the film should be placed on the road so that every one of the bikes featured in screen can run over it until it becomes a permanent part of the road. Score: 2 / 10

WOW! It's the Fast & the Furious on motorcycles! Torque is a ridiculous film from the producers of the Fast & the Furious, and it's basically the same movie except for a few key points. First they didn't have the budget of the Fast & the Furious which is evident by the stunts, which at times actually looked like a video game. I'm all for stunt men doing impossible things, and I don't mind good computer generated action either, however the CGI in Torque is just ridiculously bad, it is however nowhere near as bad as the acting. Instead of Vin Diesel and the dashing Paul Walker, the producers of this film settled for Ice Cube and some guy no one has ever heard of and trust me, the inexperience shows. This film is just as bad as all the other reviews say it is. Some poorly written, badly acted films, can be entertaining...Torque is not!

This movie had promise - good looking men and women in tight leather outfits, fast bikes, lots of action, a fair amount of violence, a decent soundtrack, and actually a potential plot line. And it starts out OK.But then about half way through the movie it seems as if another director took over (or maybe Joseph Kahn started smoking something funny). It appears to me that Kahn should have stuck to music videos and probably thought that the silly quick shots from MTV would carry over to a full length movie.In the second half of the movie the action sequences start taking on a completely unrealistic aspect to them that wasn't present in the first half. In one example the FBI agents are driving a large SUV at over 100 MPH when they hit a construction site causing the SUV to fly through the air as it flips over. The next shot shows the SUV falling straight down as if it lost all of its forward momentum. IT falls onto another car, crushing both. and yet the FBI agents are completely unharmed.Also, in the ending action scenes there are numerous shots that belong in The Matrix or another fantasy action movie, not this movie.I am all for slightly exaggerated action sequences and bike riding, but the outlandish shots found in the second half of the movie are totally out of line with the "realistic" story line in the first half of the movie.On top of that, the dialog is completely cheesy, also getting worse in the second half of the movie.So maybe another director started the movie and Kahn finished it. I can think of no other reason for such a discrepancy, other than the notion that Kahn is completely out of his depth when attempting a full length movie. Taking a video directing mentality to the full screen rarely works, and this is a good example of that.

I'm probably not the first to say it but, this is the kind of material that belongs in a video game not a movie. Lots of action, flashy visuals, and no story. Torque fails, not so much because it is gimmicky but because the viewer never gets to be a part of it. From the very first minute, the movie shifts into overdrive and moves so recklessly that it becomes incoherent, unengaging and consequently dull. After returning from Tailand to his home in Inglewood California, renowned biker Cary Ford is framed by an old rival for the murder of Junior whose brother Trey is head of the dirtiest bike gang around. While on the run, Ford along with his buddies and girlfriend, are in a race of time to get the evidence needed to prove innocence. and bring down the criminals behind the real murder.Like so many filmmakers before him, director Joseph Kahn relies on style and adrenaline alone to make his film debut compelling. About ninety percent of Torque is either fighting or chase scenes. It literally zips by so fast that at times it looses track of time, space and dimension. More importantly however, Torque moves so fast that it looses the viewers, making it hard to watch let alone watch and enjoy. I'm sure there are some people out there who would be satisfied with Torque just the way it is, but I say it needs to slow down big time. I don't recommend it.