If George Orwell were alive and well and working in marketing (heaven forfend), he might have summed up Torque thus: two wheels good, four wheels bad. This is a bike movie, dripping in machismo, testosterone and a great big dollop of homoeroticism.
Vauxhall Corsa owners need not apply… Essentially a big, dumb, modern-day Western in which Henderson’s roguish outsider rides back into town to right some wrongs, win back his girl and knock off a few black hats, Torque succeeds where the rather po-faced The Fast And The Furious failed, both in generating a (hyper) real sense of speed (director Kahn uses editing, showy camerawork and mostly dodgy CG to full effect) and, more importantly, a sense of fun.
This is preposterous, pumped-up, overblown nonsense, but at least Kahn and his cast — including a rakish Henderson and Ice Cube on perma-scowl duties — are all in on the joke.