Meet Paul Walker’s character (make up a name, it doesn’t really matter). In the first outing of this venerable – I mean venereal - franchise he was an undercover cop who liked the criminal gang he was sent to infiltrate (Hi Point Break! How’s the wife and kids?) so much, he let them get away with a bunch of stuff. Now he’s given up the cop lark to be a full-time motorhead. But his reputation has earned him quite a…reputation. Hence he is asked to help infiltrate a criminal gang by driving some cars around a bit. Some with money in ‘em. In return, his criminal record will be wiped clean (Hi xXx! Not working today?)

…what? Or rather, why? Why did Vin Diesel not sign up for this? Because he read the script. Why is it populated with rap star cameos (Hi Ludacris!) and cheap jokes? Because the dollar is king in Hollywoodland, where even the most banal of movies are given a second chance. And rap music sells, so let’s get it in the movies! F**k integrity! Lets make some sweet green! Who are the actors? Who cares! Here, here’s a movie about a girl dancing to hip-hop! Call Jessica Alba, because she was so great and emotive in “Dark f**king Angel”! Ahem.Welcome to my nightmare.

The car races are now filled with 25% more CGI and hold very little interest – a night-time lap race around a street block has only one redeemable feature – the cute girl in the pink car. I don’t even remember who won any of the races (no doubt it was Paul Walker – or if not, he either came second or pulled out some street-racing rulebook and became the winner through default). Who cares? Cars going quickly is not my idea of a fun movie but I WANTED TO GIVE IT A CHANCE. What else can be dredged from the enjoyment-well? Apart from the fact that in one hilarious mistake scene, a cop is seen to be writing in his notebook with a pen, but the page is already filled with scribbling! Now that’s “method”!!!!

Ludacris “does a Snoop” (I’m copyrighting that) and basically plays himself so he can get a song on the soundtrack (“Act A Fool” – which is pretty good – stick to what you know, Luda!). So can’t really rate him much…this leaves Eva Mendes as the love interest who is so obviously a cop she may as well have a curly tail and go “oink”.

It seems that the standards (ha!) of film-making are sorely lacking, Direction in this movie amounts to showing EXTREME CLOSE UPS of speedos. At least the first instalment had some decent stunts and a bit more of an emotional interest to it (the jealousy angle). This is just men and motors. Really. Jo Guest may as well pop up and spout some inane drivel like “oh, your exhaust pipe is filthy, let me buff it”.

And the climax of the movie is simply this – the heroes drive a car onto a boat. And that’s it. Really. This was nicely aped in the Starsky & Hutch remake and it bloody should be. It is the most useless thing ever. It’s like they ran out of ideas…well, to be fair – I thought that after the first race.