Synopsis: Former L.A. police officer Brian O'Connor must again work with the law in a sting to bring down the bad guys. This time he's on the other coast, in Miami, and the bounty is several million in drug money. 

Now for the Zone's Eye View:

By Michelle Snow

Director: John Singleton

Cast: Paul Walker, Tyrese, Eva Mendes, Cole Hauser, Ludacris, Thom Barry, James Remar and Devon Aoki

Even if you haven't seen the original, you pretty much know what you're going to get with this sequel. Lots of fast cars and even faster characters that live on the edge. Playing like a big budget Miami Vice, 2 Fast 2 Furious is set in the palm-tree laden streets of Miami. When the movie opens, we find former L.A. police officer Brian O'Connor [Walker] earning extra money by racing cars in the underbelly of the Miami import scene. Caught in a police raid, he is forced to work with the FBI in order to secure his freedom. The target? A wealthy drug lord, Carter Verone [Hauser], who is using his import/export car business to launder the money. 

He agrees to go undercover as a driver but only if he can bring his old friend Roman Pearce [Tyrese] in as his back-up. Ok, "friend" may be too strong of a word, as Pearce thinks O'Connor betrayed him when he was a cop. But the two must work together with inside undercover agent, Monica Clemente [Mendes] to bring Verone down.

In order to do so, O'Connor must also enlist the help of his comrades in the import scene, most notably Tej [Ludacris], the owner of the import body shop that runs a lot of the races, and Suki [Aoki], a tough but beautiful female racer. 

Can O'Connor save the day? You don't need a crystal ball to figure that one out. But watching this movie, you kind of get the feeling that the plot is only there to loosely hold the race scenes together. Kind of like a porn movie for import cars, the details of the story are only there to link together the gratuitous racing scenes that seem to happen every 15 minutes or so in this movie.

And there is plenty of eye candy to distract you from the lack of deep plot. For those into men, Walker and Tyrese are hunky muscle men with piercing eyes and big smiles. For those into women, the Latin Mendes [who seems to be Hollywood's "It Girl" in this year's movies] and the Asian model-turned-actress Aoki smolder on screen. And for those into the import scene, there are cars tricked out in every way imaginable. 

In fact, it's the cars, and the whole import lifestyle, that I found most interesting. Even given that this film is heavily over-dramatized, it's interesting to see the lifestyle some of these hardcore racers must live. Investing all your money into the car, racing to see who really is the Big Boy. But what the movie doesn't cover is where do these people get all this money? What suffers in their lives just so they can have the best car? Because this is a big budget lifestyle, and the money has to come from somewhere. 
I also find it interesting that this movie [as was it's predecessor] will be blamed for causing kids to race. But are these movies really the cause or merely a big screen reflection of what is already going on? Perhaps it is only guilty of bringing it from the underground into the mainstream. 

At any rate, 2 Fast 2 Furious is definitely a movie of style over substance. A nice light summer movie with lots of gloss and a few laughs that doesn't make you think. But it doesn't really make you care, either. 

6 out of 10