The Fast and the Curious 2: 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

With 2 Fast 2 Furious John Singleton set out to prove that the Fast and the Furious franchise didn't need Vin Diesel. Instead it illustrated just how essential he is to the series

If you’ve ever wondered why Ja Rule is only in The Fast and the Furious for about three minutes and is never seen again in any of the film’s sequels you can thank the rapper/Fyre Festival grifter’s famously terrible judgment for his absence.

When Vin Diesel opted out of the first sequel to The Fast and the Furious 2 Fast 2 Furious director John Singleton figured it would be nice to retain at least some familiar faces from the first film. 

So he offered Ja Rule a half million dollars to return in a massively beefed up role. Rule had a mere cameo in the original. He would have been one of the major players in 2 Fast 2 Furious. 

2 Fast 2 Furious wooed Rule with the promise of more money and more screen time but he still said no. From the vantage point of 2023, that was clearly the wrong move. After all, 2 Fast 2 Furious was a sequel to a hit film that would go on to spawn nine sequels, a spin-off and an animated series for children. 

Rule would have made millions upon millions of dollars being part of the franchise’s famously tight-knit family but he was too short-sighted to see the franchise’s potential.

How important is family to The Fast and the Furious movies? Rumor has it that Vin Diesel insisted on having Olive Garden cater 2 Fast 2 Furious despite not even appearing in the movie. 

It is easy and fun to mock Ja Rule and his questionable life choices but I can also see why he turned down a big role in a franchise that turned out to be way more successful than anyone could have imagined. 

That is worth remembering. Nothing about The Fast and the Furious or 2 Fast 2 Furious suggests that the films will be the first two entries in one of the biggest and most lucrative franchises in the history of American film. 

Yet somehow a glorified b-movie about a raspy dude stealing DVD players with criminal associates who are almost like some manner of surrogate “family” became a cinematic powerhouse on par with the Mission Impossible, James Bond, Jurassic Park and Marvel franchises. 

Rule didn’t see the series’ vast potential, just a script that was a subpar blueprint for an inferior sequel. So Singleton called up Ludacris and offered him a role that would have been filled by Rule had he chosen to re-up. 

Ludacris is a smart and talented performer but he’s also been tremendously savvy in how he has managed his career. So when he got the call from Singleton he said yes and has been reaping the benefits of being part of one of the biggest cash cows in pop culture ever since. 

2 Fast 2 Furious director John Singleton set out to make a sequel that proved that The Fast and the Furious series didn’t need Vin Diesel's raspy charisma and macho magnetism to succeed. Instead it ended up illustrating just how essential he is to the series’ success. 

Diesel’s absence leaves a charisma void not even a performer as talented and flashy as Ludacris can fill. That’s partially because the films in this franchise have an annoying habit of angrily insisting that you be blown away by a supporting character that it proceeds to then forget about for a solid hour.

So while Luda makes an indelible impression with his giant afro, throwback look and gift of gab, the movie sidelines him for much of the proceedings so it can focus on his less entertaining costars. 

2 Fast 2 Furious reunited Singleton with his Baby Boy costar Tyrese Gibson. Incidentally Singleton had apparently written the role Tyrese played in Baby Boy specifically for Tupac Shakur. 

Tupac was, unfortunately, too busy being dead to play the role so the filmmakers went with their second choice. That made me spend the entirety of 2 Fast 2 Furious imagining a version with Tupac Shakur as Roman instead of Tyrese. 

That alternate universe version of 2 Fast 2 Furious, in which the star of Juice and writer-director of Boyz N The Hood joined forces to make a mercenary sequel to a silly drag racing melodrama, would have benefited from a star every bit as badass and impressive as the screenplay angrily insists. 

2 Fast 2 Furious gives Tyrese the star treatment. He’s supposed to be an explosive, combustible rebel whose fast hands and quick mouth get him in trouble but he comes off more like a pretty boy who owes everything to his androgynous beauty. 

Singleton’s screamingly unnecessary follow-up moves the action to neon Miami, where Brian now lives after having been kicked off the force for letting Diesel’s manly bad guy get away at the end of the first film. 

In appreciation, Brian’s best friend Dom could have, at the very least, popped in to wish him luck and to hear about all the exciting, sexy adventures he’s sure to have against this colorful backdrop. 

But that ingrate doesn’t pop in for so much as a cameo, leaving the sequel in a dilly of a pickle. How do you replace the only thing that made a movie work in the first place? 

You don’t, but that doesn’t keep 2 Fast 2 Furious from cynically and unsuccessfully trying to replace Diesel with Gibson. 

Brian is eking out a living in Miami from illegal street racing when he’s busted by the cops, who threaten to toss him in the slammer unless he helps them bring down generic drug lord Carter Verone (second generation ham Cole Hauser, playing a combination maniac/enforcer).  

Brian insists on choosing his partner for the mission. The undercover operative picks Roman despite his friend doing nothing to help him avoid a prison stint. 

When Brian and Roman are reunited they’re full of fire, fury and barely repressed sexual desire. They get in each other’s faces and explode with rage but it also feels like they’re mere moments from kissing passionately. 

Homoeroticism has always been a big part of the Fast and the Furious franchise. It’s about large men who love other large men deeply and intimately and in ways that may not be entirely platonic either. 

Walker and Gibson are supposed to be speed-obsessed, danger-loving hotheads but they both give off male model vibes. That makes sense in that Gibson was at one point what he very much seems to be here: literally the most successful male model in the world. 

Gibson is EXTREMELY handsome, particularly when he takes off his shirt for a VERY narratively sound reason so that we can all appreciate the man’s perfect musculature. 

The low wattage team of Brian and Roman discover that Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes), Carter’s girlfriend, is actually a Customs agent working undercover to bring him down. 

Mendes plays a tough, strong woman who is never afraid to strip down to a bikini or reveal all manner of sweaty, glistening cleavage. She’s shameless eye candy cynically posited as a strong, empowered woman. 

The same is true of Suki (Devon Aoki), the sole female drag-racer. She’s introduced in a shot that lingers long and hard on her posterior before eventually and reluctantly getting to her face and drives a hot pink Honda just in case there’s any question as to what gender she belongs to. 

There are, regrettably, only two genders in this franchise: muscle-bound dudes and sexy, scantily clad chicks. The women in these movies are fundamentally ornamental. They’re here to be ogled shamelessly and sexualized relentlessly.

Singleton doesn’t delineate between the dangerous, seductive curves of the cars or the women on display. They’re all part of the same sexy spectacle for Singleton. 

For better or worse 2 Fast 2 Furious sometimes feels like a lost Cannon exploitation movie that somehow picked up a blockbuster budget. 

Character actor Mark Boone Junior pops up briefly in the film’s most lurid sequence as an undercover officer whose genitalia just barely survives a threatened rodent attack courtesy of the main bad guy. 

I would give a movie an R rating based solely on a scene where a crazed rat nearly devours a man’s penis but 2 Fast 2 Furious doesn’t show anything truly disgusting or objectionable, like men holding hands or expressing romantic love for one another, so it was able to slide by with a PG-13 rating. 

2 Fast 2 Furious exists for chase scenes that are its lovingly, if blurrily filmed money shots. This is as close as Singleton ever got to directing a Speed Racer movie. At its best 2 Fast 2 Furious is dumb fun but mostly it’s just dumb. 

The Fast and the Furious franchise seemingly ran out of gas in its second outing. Diesel, however, made a strong enough impression the first time around that the series was able to survive another off-brand, essentially Diesel-free follow-up in Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift before the Chronicles of Riddick star returned to set the series soaring to new heights, literally and figuratively with Fast & Furious. 

But before Diesel’s righteous return and Dwayne Johnson’s introduction the franchise wandered in the wilderness for two entries devoid of what audiences love most about the series: Diesel, and to a lesser extent the actor’s chemistry with Walker. 

Next up we’re headed to Japan for Tokyo Drift, one of several entries in the series I have not seen. That won’t be the case soon as I want to be an expert on these spectacularly silly but sometimes enormously fun pieces of pop detritus.