So far, one racing movie has come out this summer: Driven. The Fast and the Furious is the second. Is it better than Driven?

The Fast and the Furious is about a white guy who is in love with Vin Diesel's sister, a Latina who makes tuna fish sandwiches at a bar. Can the white guy learn the skills of street racing while avoiding cops to win in the Race Wars?

The Fast and the Furious is a mindless summer action movie. Normally these come a dime a dozen, but lately most of them have been lousy: The Mummy Returns, Tomb Raider, and Driven all fall below the level of average. The Fast and the Furious actually has cool racing scenes that had no commentators the entire time, unlike Driven which has commentators in every scene!

The plot isn't great and the ending is totally insane. I'm a bit surprised this got a PG-13 rating, but I guess you can say "fuck" once and stick with a PG-13. Add in some sex scenes where the character's backs are to the camera and the covers are to their necks and it's all set.

Vin Diesel seems to be pushing to be the next big action star. He certainly has the muscles, but speaks with a monotone super-deep voice that makes him seem like a joke.

The Japanese gang is really underdeveloped and it's a shame that a crucial scene featuring them is ruined with rap music over the top of what's happening. The Fast and the Furious is not realistic at all. Cars get plowed into by trucks, spin around in the air, and slam to the ground with the drivers surviving with nary a scratch on them.

I give The Fast and the Furious *** out of ****.

A friend of mine has recently become obsessed with import car racing, and street racing. Needless to say, he was in love with this movie the first time he saw it. Naturally, he told me that I needed to go see it. I went and saw it, and finally, I punched him in the stomach.

I guess this movie is just barely better than Driven, with some good action sequences, but the rest of the movie is pure trash. From all of the bad acting (with Vin Diesel leading the way) to the blatant rip-off of the movie "Point Break", This movie seriously lacked redeeming quality. I was actually accurrately predicting what would happen next, based on the fact that I had seen "Point Break". Aside from the cars, there wasn't a whole lot of originallity in the story.

**1/2 out of ****