Torque

Year of release : 2004

 

Run time : 1h28min

 

Genre : Action

 

Cast : Ice Cube, Martin Henderson, Jaime Pressly, Monet Mazur, Jay Hernandez, Will Yun Lee, Christina Milian

 

 

The movie opens with Ford coming back to town. He is first harassed by two guys at a diner(but he puts them in their place*eye roll) ,then by the brother of the leader of the Reapers.

He and his two friends go to a biker party, where he sees his estranged girlfriend(at her biker shop),whom he left 6 months prior,after he stole the bikes full of meth of the Hellion biker gang.

 

The leader of the gang,seeing the animosity between him and Junior,the brother of the leader of the Reapers,decide to k!ll Junior and frame Ford, so Ford would be k!lled by the Reapers.

 

His ex girlfriend forgives him,and with her and his friends help,Ford tries to clear his name. This won't be easy,as he also has the FBI on his tracks.

 

The movie feels like a '90's B movie,with unnecessary fights,happening just because we need to see the lead fighting,or more like,showing his skills.

At the beginning of the movie,the dialogue is really bad.

The director,Joseph Kahn,is one of my favorite music video directors,for example,he directed Britney Spears' video, Toxic, which has a lot of the visual effects and some scenes this movie has. It even stars Martin Henderson.

The movie feels like a music video,it has beautiful colors which pop. In certain scenes,mostly in the first half an hour, there are certain scenes which look like a music video or a commercial. Like the Michael Bay movies.

The direction was fine,the movie is aesthetically beautiful,but the problem lies with the plot and the dialogue. There are many characters who are just angry for no reason,and who just start fights.

 

The villain is cartoonish,and has a bad haircut.

I don't know why Jaime Pressly is in the movie,because I remember her being pretty famous at the time,but she's just there,doing nothing,anyone could have played her character,for example,she talks for the first time at the 1 hour and 13 minutes mark! And she has two lines!

There's a lot of tongue action happening with these two,which wasn't impressive.

 

I liked the action / fighting scenes,as some of them, happen on bikes,thing unique at the time,and even now.

 

The visual effects were good,but some of the fighting scenes were ridiculous. For example, in one of them,as they are riding into a palm tree forest,they speak normally while the bikes are running,meaning the bikes are being loud. How could they hear each other?The bikes are loud just by passing by you on the street!

There's another scene which I'm guessing was supposed to be cool,but just annoyed me,of Ice Cube reading the map while driving the motorcycle,his whole crew driving on the whole street,on both lanes!

Another one,also with Ice Cube,probably in the same scene,he's talking on the phone while driving the bike,and he sticks the phone to his helmet! How can he do that,and how can he hear anything?! Again,because the bikes are loud!

 

This is actually a movie I always knew was kinda bad,but I liked the fighting scenes, so I actually own an original tape.

 

I didn't quite like the soundtrack,as I felt it didn't match the movie,or the scenes it was played in,and the sound effects were too loud.

 

The actors were fine.

 

Torque is streaming on Tubi Tv, and is for rent / sale on Amazon Video, Apple Tv, DirecTv, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube.

 

Rating : Could have been a contender!