Torque Review
by Rose 'Bams' Cooper (bams AT 3blackchicks DOT com)January 20th, 2004
'3BlackChicks Review...'
TORQUE (2004)
Rated PG-13; running time 81 minutes
Studio: Warner Bros
Genre: Brain-dead Action
Seen at: Magic Johnson Lowes-Harlem (New York, New York) Official site: http://www2.warnerbros.com/torque/
IMDB site: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329691/combined Writer: Matt Johnson, J.P. Donahue, Kevin Polay
Director: Joseph Kahn
Cast: Martin Henderson, Ice Cube, Monet Mazur, Matt Schulze, Fredro Starr, Will Yun Lee, Jay Hernandez
Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2004
Review URL:
http://www.3blackchicks.com/2004reviews/bamstorque.html
I guess there's one good thing to come from TORQUE: I've finally found somewhere to put my displaced STUPORNOVA anger.
THE STORY (WARNING: **overexposure to this movie will make your brane hurt**)
This won't take long; promise.
In TORQUE, Ford (Martin Henderson) does something Stupid that pisses Henry (Matt Schulze) off, for which Henry does something Mean to Trey's (Ice Cube) brother Junior (Fredro Starr) and blames it on Ford, who did something Stupid to Shane (Monet Mazur), Ford's ex-Warm Place To Put It...yada yada frickin yada. And of course, they all speak in Growly Voices, strike Menacing Poses on jacked-up crotch rockets and assorted other butt-jewelry, daring us to not laugh at how utterly pointless it all is.
THE UPSHOT
It's no compliment when I say that TORQUE makes the craptacular BIKER BOYZ look like High Art. At least BOYZ had some vague sense of reality. TORQUE didn't bother being bogged down with any realistic notions, though. Thick with laughable CGI that looked like it had been made on an etch-a-sketch, and models-slash-actors who moved like they had a stick up their collective asses, scowled like scowling was going out of season, and spoke lines that sounded like they were plucked from a third-grade writing assignment - TORQUE, in case I was being too subtle before, was just gotdam painful to watch.
I really have no right to be pissed off about how extremely ungood TORQUE really was; I knew, full well, what I had in store for me, when I saw those godawful trailers. But I can avoid only so many of the January piles of movie manure before my credibility as a critic comes into question. Besides, I'm a Biker Chick; I have to sit through cruddy pseudo-biker movies.
But *you* don't. So I urge you, save yourselves, before it's too late; move along, nothing to see here. Spend your hard-earned dollars elsewhere. Your wallet, and your brain cells, will thank me later.
3BC IN THE MOVIE HOUSE
I found myself torn between doing a Black Factor on Ice Cube, and a Movie House bit on the Magic Johnson theater in Harlem. As you can see, the Movie House won out; I'll deal with Cube later, in my review of his upcoming BARBERSHOP 2 sequel.
I asked the "Viewer Voices" crew to recommend a decent theater that would be closest to where I would be this weekend in New York City; as it turned out, I saw the Magic Johnson Lowes Theater on 125th and Frederick Douglass, as I was coming in on Friday. The theater, in the heart of Harlem (across the street from the historic Apollo Theater) is big, shiny, clean - and, for this midwestern kid, anyway, fairly expensive. Not much more than the other Lowes I went to awhile back (the one on 42nd Street). Like that Lowes, this one charges $9.50 for general admission, and highway robbery for any movie snacks one might be tempted to buy. Standard pricing for most theaters in NYC, I'm guessing; but that's part of the problem.
It occurred to me that a theater that prides itself on Keeping It In The Community (complete with commercials featuring Johnson himself, extolling that very thing), should consider the fact that The Community it's selling to, could stand to keep some of those dollars in its own pockets. Hey, I'm all for Black folks exploiting this capitalistic society; Magic has the right to earn as much money from the populace as any other (read: White) businessman. But playing on the The Hood for support while you're exploiting its sense of community, just doesn't seem right. Then again, it seems to be working for Michael Jackson, so hey.
BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE
The folks behind TORQUE must've known I missed giving any 2003 movie a triple redlight - and wanted to do me the favor of being the first such for 2004.
TORQUE rating: triple redlight
Rose "Bams" Cooper
Webchick and Editor,
3BlackChicks Review
Entertainment Reviews With Flava!
Copyright Rose Cooper, 2004
EMAIL: [email protected]
http://www.3blackchicks.com/
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
