In the pursuit of summer fun it’s easy to get caught up in the mindless action and forget that you’re watching a film and not riding a rollercoaster. Don’t get me wrong, summer movies are primarily supposed to be fun and I certainly take that into account when I review a summer movie. But movies that come out in the summer are still movies; they’re every bit as Oscar-eligible as any other film and should be treated as such. A movie like 2 Fast 2 Furious (and by the way, that’s the only time I will say the film’s idiotic name in this review) is certainly intended, like all summer films, to be a fun, exciting, action-packed ride that keeps you entertained for a couple of hours and gives you your money’s-worth of a good time. It certainly does all those things, but should it only be judged as a good time, a fun ride, a mindless adrenaline shot? Certainly not. It bears the name of one of the greatest institutions in the history of film and thus should be held to the same standard as every other film bearing the seal of Universal Studios. As a movie, this film lacks in a few pretty important places. It certainly does a good job of taking the original source material, one of the biggest hits of 2001, The Fast and the Furious, and reusing what was great about it in creative new ways. The original film follows an undercover cop (Paul Walker) that must immerse himself in the world of illegal street racing in order to uncover an elaborate crime ring. The original film’s star character, the role that would make Vin Diesel famous, is glaringly absent from this sequel but he is somewhat replaced by a more amiable partner in Roman Pearce, played by Tyrese. As this film opens, Walker has become a hotshot street racer in Miami after flying the coop from the LAPD without telling anyone where he was going. His racing buddies include Suki (Devon Aoki), a porcelain doll of a girl who races in her pink convertible, and Tej, the bookie for all the local races who is played by the immortal Ludacris. Most of the film focuses on a thin plot devised to get us from one street race to the next and it has something to do with the mafia and money being dropped off somewhere but frankly, all of that is secondary to the film. Not that a movie absolutely has to have a good story to be a good movie but what hurts this film the most is its inability to stick to your brain. There is not one memorable line, scene or shot in this entire movie, a feat that is quite inexcusable when you’re talking to a guy who can remember where he was, who he was with, and what he ate at every movie he’s ever seen in the theaters. I won’t deny that I was engrossed in the action of this movie, a testament, if anything, to John Singleton who is able to make me care about what happens even though I don’t really care about the plot. Paul Walker and Tyrese have a pretty decent chemistry together as the cliché buddy partners of the film and Eva Mendes is smoldering as the undercover FBI agent helping out the duo from inside the mafia (I always was a sucker for a beautiful Latina with a gun). If you are just looking for a good way to kill two hours then you could certainly do a lot worse than this movie. The car chases are well-done and exciting and the dialogue is clever and fun between the two lead men. Unfortunately, this film stops short of giving us anything truly memorable, any lasting image that is so fantastic that it permanently burns onto our brains. It sounds like a lot to ask but if I am to call myself a critic, I must demand greatness and expect to be impressed. Despite having arguably the worst title for a sequel I’ve ever seen, 2 Fast 2 Furious gets a mild recommendation from me for being fun and exciting to watch but I certainly don’t want to go on the books as calling this one a great movie.