2 Fast 2 Furious Movie Review

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

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Written by: Gary Scott Thompson  (characters), Michael Brandt & Derek Haas and Gary Scott Thompson (story), Michael Brandt & Derek Haas (screenplay)
Directed by: John Singleton
Starring: Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Cole Hauser, Eva Mendes, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, James Remar, Devon Aoki, Michael Ealy, Mark Boone Junior
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
Former cop Brian O'Conner is called upon to bust a dangerous criminal and he recruits the help of a former childhood friend and street racer who has a chance to redeem himself.

Verdict
Not a bad movie at all, though it's little more than a generic undercover cop drama. This takes a few queues from the first one, adding more cars, explosions, and drama. This is an action movie with a quick pace, but it lacks the character development of the first one. It's not a car movie like the first one, and you can tell with this one where the franchise is heading, over the top action.
It depends.

Review
Vin Diesel was offered a role in the movie and the producers wanted him in it, but Diesel was afraid sequels would cheapen the original. While Tokyo Drift was a reboot of the franchise, Diesel returned for the fourth and all subsequent Fast & Furious sequels starring and producing for more creative control.

This has a lot of similarities to The Fast and the Furious. This starts with a street race, but in this movie Brian, not Dom, is the street racing king. The cops recruit him for a job to track down a drug kingpin, offering to void all charges and end his stint as a fugitive. He has to go undercover as a street racer again, and he wants to bring in his old friend Roman. It never seemed odd that Dom wasn't in this movie. Ostensibly he's on the run too.

Ludacris, Tyrese, Paul Walker play Tej, Roman, Brian.

This certainly has a larger budget, going for over the top, with more cars and more styles including imports, muscle cars, and modern domestics. The first movie had a love of cars that isn't present in this one. The car logic is loose in deference to the action, and that's a hallmark of the franchise. Car races are quite long and NOS (nitrous oxide) is a magical additive to double a car's power.

The movie maintains an action packed, adrenaline fueled pace throughout, though it does suffer from the usual sequel bloat. While there are more cars, destruction, characters, and races, the characterization suffers. The plot is generic undercover cop drama that adds flash import cars to distinguish it.