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2 Fast 2 Furious is like a Showgirls sequel starring no one but Kyle MacLachlan. After The Fast and the Furious slept its way to box-office success despite its Vin Diesel-fueled dumbness, a franchise was clearly born, and 2 Fast has arrived to expand the brandexcept with a different director, different writers, and, um, pretty much an entirely new cast. Shiny white boy Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) is the only major leftover, playing a former undercover cop who loves the racin’, thievin’, and frontin’ lifestyle he investigated in the original too darn much to stay true to the fuzz. Brian greets his fresh gang, including Tej (Ja Rule replacement Ludacris) and ridiculous token Asian Suki (Devon Aoki), as if they’d been racing together for, like, two movies, and the group’s ready acceptance of him is all the more puzzling once Brian starts with all the “yo”s, “bro”s, and laughable exclamations: “I know, man, it’s getting thick in here real quick!” The now-tough Brian is called back by the feds to help catch another bunch of ne’er-do-wells, and to keep it real he enlists the help of outlaw boyhood friend (yeah, right) Roman Pearce (Tyrese, cast despite his well-publicized claim that he never saw the first Fast because “I don’t watch movies”). The setup is contrived, the execution confusing, and the acting awful: Walker is about as street as an Iowa frat boy; Eva Mendes, as fellow undercover officer Monica Fuentes, pouts very hard during dirty-dealing negotiations involving a rat; and Tyrese…well, his dramatic skills can be measured only by the squeal of female audience members whenever Roman takes off his shirt. The pretty little cars and their revving engines are OK distractions from the rest of the dreck, but when the action devolves into a game of chicken, this film is 2 bad 2 be 4-given. Tricia Olszewski