Torque
30 minutes into this I wanted to really hate it. It was the most despicable sort of testosterone-driven nonsense. The guys were needlessly on edge and prone to violence. The women were basically there to be impressed by the stupid male competition and give it up.
This film also has some of the more absurd action sequences. This is the tragedy of the new CGI world. A film like this in the past would have meant really neat action scenes performed by stunt drivers. Now it means a lot of stuff patched together on computers. It kind of takes the thrill out of the action. The most obviously terrible moment is when a Hummer is sent spiraling from one side of the highway to another and then, intent on falling top to top on another car, is shown falling straight down. Toward the end it has a scene where it completely decides to abandon any pretense of realism.
And of course, having worked in injury prevention, watching a film with this much aggressive motorcycle racing, much without helmets, the only happy ending would have been everyone crashing and dying of massive head trauma as a morality tale in not being a douchebag.
But while this is a bad movie, there are a few points that save it from getting the dread 1/5. One is that there is a certain so bad it is good charm to how terribly fake everything is. The second main appeal here is Adam Scott. He is kind of wonderful as an FBI agent.
Also, this film ends on a Nickleback song, that strikes me as an unforgivable sin.
2/5