0:16:00 -- I normally chime in before now but very little has actually happened. This opening has been an extended illegal street race in what I think is Miami and, since I have zero interest in looking it up, definitely is Miami. Miami has an extremely ineffective police force since literally hundreds of people gather to watch four high performance automobiles race at dangerous speeds through the city's downtown and not a single cop manages to take notice. Vin Diesel was, of course, in the first movie but, since his career was going so well at the time, he was able to bow out of the sequel. I'm sure Vin will always be a huge star and never have to do one of these Fast and Furious movies again. Stepping in as the main character is Paul Walker who is reprising his role as Brian O'Connor from the first movie. I think he was an undercover cop who let Vin Diesel's criminal character go in the first movie since cool guys who can drive should never be locked up but again, since I can't believe any of this will be important, I'm not looking it up. Now he street races professionally and I must say that, even though it's unsafe, street racing seems to have one of the most rigidly enforced ethnic diversity programs in the country as all 4 contestants are from different races. They also all carry around $35,000 just in case someone challenged them to a side bet which Brian does. He wins and it looks like his real prize will be a gorgeous Latina played by Eva Mendes but FINALLY the cops show up and disable Brian's car with some sort of EMP device that looks like it could take down the Enterprise.
"Hey folks. Who's a guy gotta blow to get a Fluffernutter around here?"0:36:00 -- It turns out the cops were targeting O'Connor because they want him to go undercover to help bust a drug lord. This makes sense since the one guy you'd want in a sensitive undercover mission is the guy who let the target of his previous sensitive undercover mission go. Brian says he wants an old pal and fellow street racer, Roman Pierce, along for the venture though this may be difficult since Brian is responsible for sending Roman to prison. Roman is played by former male model Tyrese Gibson which leads me to the conclusion that MY GOD, STREET RACERS ARE GOOD LOOKING. Seriously, seeing those two together is making me regret not being gay right now. Roman agrees after a promise to wipe his criminal record clean and they again meet Eva Mendes who turns out to be playing another undercover cop named Monica Fuentes who is working for the drug lord, Carter Verone. Verone wants our adorable pair and some other drivers to audition to see who gets to work for him. They have to break into a police auto lot and retrieve a package from Verone's impounded Ferrari. Let me tell you all right now that, if you ever fancied the idea of driving along the highway at speeds exceeding 120 MPH so you could be the first one to break into a police impound lot, Miami is definitely the place to do this since they didn't attract even a small amount of police attention. When they get back, Roman rags on Brian for checking Monica out and demands to know why. Allow me to answer: he checked her out because she looks like Eva fucking Mendes. Moron.
Uh, yeah, this isn't what it looks like.1:05:00 -- This movie is very well made. It looks nice, the actors can speak without drooling. There are two problems. Problem one: the plot is very thin but that would be all right since the plot mainly exists as a clothesline upon which to hang car chases. Problem two: the car chases. Oh, they look good. Director John Singleton and everyone else involved knew what they were doing technically. The problem is that every car chase is the same. Brian and Roman are racing around for various reasons and come close to losing until Brian, with a stone face and steely eyes, hits the button that shoots nitrous oxide into the engine and he rides to victory on the burst of speed. That's what happened when they wanted two new cars since the ones the government gave them were wired with GPS they couldn't remove so they challenged two other street racers and won their cars by, you guessed it, hitting the nitro at the last minute. Oh well, I'm sure they're just preparing for the final, nitro-free finale so we just have to wait. Anyway, they got the job with Verone who wants them to move a package across town. You'd think UPS could do that but no, he wants them. Verone assures the two that cops will be occupied for 15 minutes, something he arranges by threatening to have a rat dig its way through the belly of a supervising detective so I guess Verone isn't one of those nice drug kingpins who motivates employees with gift cards and such. While Brian is asleep, Monica sneaks into his bedroom and says...I have no idea what she said since Eva Mendes is wearing a tight, low cut shirt tied up so it also shows her midriff. Hold on, let me rewind and...oh my, turns out Verone is planning to kill them but we've already established he's not nice so let's not be too surprised.
I wonder why Brian was checking her out.1:47:00 -- Best thing about having a minimal plot is that it I can quickly condense the past 40 minutes. The whole "Just take some drug money and drive across town with it" plan went to hell very quickly when the cop who was supposed to clear their path had a change of heart. I guess threatening to have a rat eat your guts doesn't scare people like it used to. Anyway, they drive around Miami and cause dozens of police cars to crash before pulling into a garage where they arranged to have their pal, Tej (played by Ludacris), the guy who arranges all the street races, get every street racer in the city to pull out of that garage simultaneously. Why'd they do that? Because John Singleton and the writers told them to, that's why. They switched out of the bugged cars they were in and drove to Verone who did, in fact, try to kill them after he figured out Monica was a spy. He took Monica and the money with him on his yacht so Brian and Roman came up with the can't-miss plan that any one of us would have done, that being drive the car off a ramp and onto the yacht. I would say this made the movie lose all credibility but, since it had no credibility, I guess doing that made perfect sense. They capture Verone and keep a small amount of the money for themselves. Sadly, Brian didn't get to have sex with Monica. Happily, the movie is over.
I wonder how much those yachts with the fully loaded muscle cars cost.
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