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Biker Boyz vs. Torque

These silly motorcycle movies came out around the same time and tried to ride the wave of The Fast and the Furious, which BTW is an amazing movie franchise that I love (no joke). Sadly, there was no sequels to either of these movies, no Biker 2oyz or 2orque. But let’s compare.

Biker Boyz

Smoke, played by Larry Fishburne, is “The King of Cali” which is like the top motorcycle racing guy in California. The movie does nothing to explain what it means to be the KoC or what the benefits are. It just means you’re cool. There are some other people that want to be the KoC, including KID ROCK who goes by Dogg and wears a tight spiked dog collar and this other guy named Kid whose dad is Smoke’s mechanic. Anyway, if you want a better plot synopsis go Google it. This movie is boring. The characters suck, the races are boring, there don’t seem to be any adults around to have a realistic perspective on anything. It turns out Kid’s real dad is actually Smoke, plot twist, and there’s the big climatic final showdown race where the loser has to give up racing motorcycles FOREVER. Stakes is high!

Smoke lets Kid “grow up and be a man” by letting him beat him, thus becoming the new KoC. Goddamn if I wanted someone to grow up I’d make them stop racing in their silly motorcycle crew. The final race is so boring, basically it’s like neither of them realize they can twist the throttle more until they’re getting passed. Lots of really intense throttle twisting. Yawn. Then a bunch of corny sentimentality.

1 out of 4 cylinders.

BTW, Larry Fishburne was in Death Wish 2, which I didn’t mention in my Death Wish post. He plays a thug who gets shot in the face while trying to shield it with his boom box. Classy!

Torque

I watched this second and immediately knew I would enjoy it more. Right off the bat they throw down the gauntlet to Fast and Furious, as two cars racing get totally passed by a motorcycle guy doing a wheelie with flames shooting out of his exhaust and it makes the street signs spin like crazy as the motorcycle goes by going so fast and the spinning signs say “cars suck” and oh my god that’s so cool and there are like CGI zoom ins on motors as people push buttons on their steering wheels and the NOS explodes and then they’re like vrrrrroooooommmm and the gauges go to the max because they’re going so fast!

I watched this movie with a friend remotely and it was a total hoot. Unlike Biker Boyz, this movie has motorcycles doing all kinds of physics defying bullshit. It’s wondrous. People riding real fast and getting kicked in a face and not losing their balance, and when someone needs to get away there is always some sloped surface to ride up and jump off of. The movie makers were also really obsessed with reflections and there are so many shots that involve mirrors and shiny objects.

My favorite scene is when the two girls fight while on their motorcycles. No one would do this, they would just get off their motorcycles and fight. But this is Torque and all expression must happen through motorcycles. They bang front wheels and ride standing up while kicking and punching. The big final chase scene with the fastest bike in the universe (called the Y2K bike) is real silly. Thankfully, there is a YouTube clip of all this:

All in all, this movie fires on 3 out of 4 cylinders. It’s not cinema, but it’s fun!