Title should be "Drivel" or "MTV goes to the Races"

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2001)

Take 2 race lovers (Harlin and Stallone), give them a chance to go around the world getting shots of race tracks and races, mix in loud pulsing music tracks, and then spend a lot of money on CG. Forget plot, character, or real world, that doesn't matter. Just create some hackney superficial plot devices (young punk vs experienced driver, old loves vs new loves, uncaring management vs the human element) and presto, you get the green light from WB to make the ultimate ad for a playstation 2 video game! If you want to see a movie about car racers/racing, this ain't it! Performances are wooden, even by Stallone standards, and the racing photography relies much too much on computer graphic generated images, which are often rather obvious.
"Grand Prix" John Frankenheimer's film from 1966 has real drivers, and the actors are also really driving their cars in the movie. Even though "Grand Prix" suffers from a poor plot, excessive use of split screen, and weak characters, it is a far more engaging film to watch, and has some greatest racing sequences on film. In addition, all that movie's special effects were done without the benefit of computers.
Sly, please, if you must write your own films, try to create people with interesting things to say to each other, invent a plot that hasn't been done 100 times before, and then hire a director who can get his actors to act.