The majority of the yawn-inducing plot focuses on a kid named Jaleel who goes by the nickname (Wait for it!) "Kid". ANTWONE FISHER's Derek Luke does his best impression of a brooding Mekhi Phifer playing Kid. His dad, played by Eriq La Salle with a RAIN MAN-like gleam in his eyes, is the mechanic for Smoke, the head of the most prominent gang called the Black Knights. Smoke is known as the "King of Cali" and is the man everyone is aiming to beat.

Laurence Fishburne plays Smoke in an utterly thankless role. I can only guess that when given the option of taking the red pill or the briefcase full of cash he opted for the money. He's been turning down the red pill an awful lot of late. What was his last decent role?

A big deal is made out of the fact that Smoke "enters the zone" while racing and develops this uncanny tunnel vision of sorts where he is so focused on the finishing line that the director uses optical effects to blur everything that isn't directly ahead of him like he's got some kind of dumb superpower. Do the X-Men have a spot for a guy who possesses the power of Coke bottle vision?

After dad is tragically killed on the sidelines during a racing accident, Kid, who had been a prospect for the Black Knights, makes it his personal mission to dethrone Smoke. Unfortunately, you can't just challenge the "King of Cali" without being a member of a gang and earning your way up the ladder. I wasn't aware that illegal street racing had a ranking system. Who knew?

Kid takes a cue from the movie RAD and decides to go into business for himself in order to earn his shot by forming his own gang called (Wait for it again!) "Biker Boyz". In addition to using a "Z" in place of the letter "S", they also spell their names in Japanese on their jackets for added coolness. The Japanese spelling on the jackets combined with their trademark yellow and black colors lead one to suspect that they may also be huge fans of Japanese wrestling superstar Toshiaki Kawada. Yes, a highly obscure reference - sue me!

It seems like the only qualification to join the Biker Boyz is that you must be able to ride a motorcycle or a four-wheeler, be under the age of 25, and look like either an underwear model or a potential cast member of a CW Network drama. Kid founded the group with his two best friends: one with hair that looks like what would happen if Don King unsuccessfully attempted to grow an afro and the other played by Roswell's Brendan Fehr, who's acting style could best be described as akin to that of a young surfer dude Keanu Reeves after being shot with a tranquilizer dart. Kid's Biker Boyz begin racking up wins left and right but that's not enough for Kid as he also encourages them to begin scamming fellow bikers out of even more money. I think the screenwriters couldn't make up their minds as to whether we were supposed to be rooting for these guys to succeed or thinking they're a bunch of obnoxious punks.

Kid also strikes up a relationship with bootylicious tattoo artist Tina. Not since Sarah Michelle Geller portrayed the world's most emaciated gourmet chef in SIMPLY IRRESISTABLE has there been such gross miscasting. I've never seen a tattoo artist that didn't have any tattoos, and since she spends most of the movie dressed like a hooker you certainly get to see most of her non-tattooed body. The whole romantic subplot with these two feels like something the studio insisted on being tacked on to appeal to the females in the audience. Making it all the more unbearable, Kid and Tina have no chemistry and their entire relationship seems predicated on their good looks.

Smoke also has a love interest named Queenie, played by Lisa Bonet of The Cosby Show fame and little else. Perhaps "played" is too strong a word. Lines are recited and facial expressions are made but acting is not what Miss Bonet is doing. She looks and sounds like she's utterly bored. Can't say I blame her.

Orlando Jones also turns up as Soul Train, a lawyer by day and a Black Knight by, well, night. He's not only Smoke's right hand man; he's also his personal ring announcer of sorts. Envision a slam poetry version of Paul Bettany's A KNIGHT'S TALE character and you get the idea. Kind of a pointless character typifying the film's lack of insight; the guy's a lawyer by trade, so why is he willing to be the ringmaster for an aging biker?

Kid Rock, looking like a white trash Sebastian Bach, makes a cameo as Dogg, top contender to Smoke's fictitious championship. Suffice to say, he does not unseat the champ. Like Lisa Bonet, Rock too recites lines and makes facial expressions, but unlike her he at least makes an effort.

Djimon Hounsou shows up as a biker named Motherland who is essentially just Djimon Hounsou with tattoos. Again, there isn't much in the way of depth to most of the characters. Several other recognizable faces also show up in various roles that give them little to do other than collect a paycheck. We'll just move on.

Getting back to the plot, Kid gets busted for street racing prompting his overprotective mom to threaten to kick him out of the house unless he gives it up. He vows to quit but we know he doesn't mean it. It's staggering how poorly conceived the character of Kid's mom is; a woman constantly saying and doing things that are totally contradictory and never does she get called on any of it. For example, despite the fact that mom doesn't want him getting involved with the same element that killed his father she still doesn't have any problem getting all dolled up and joining her son at the Black Knight's annual big dance. Yeah, the biker gang holds an annual dance as if they're the Kiwanis Club or something. They also hold charity events like a bikini carwash where all the proceeds go to fight illiteracy. Hopefully the makers of TORQUE got the help they needed.

BIKER BOYZ officially jumps the shark when mom tries to get an apathetic Smoke to help her get baby boy out of the biker lifestyle by revealing to him that Kid is actually his son. Neither Kid nor Smoke is all that happy about this inexplicable revelation. If I actually gave a damn about this movie or anyone in it I would probably be annoyed by such a hackneyed cliché being pulled out of the screenplay's ass in order to try to spice things up. I know this happened about an hour into the movie because I checked my watch just a few minutes earlier to see how long it had been. What felt like almost two hours had only been about 55-minutes; BIKER BOYZ clocks in at an insufferable 110 minutes - absolutely uncalled for. For the record, the man seated behind me in the theater let out a gasp when mom revealed that Smoke was actually Kid's dad. Hearing that man's gasp of disbelief was the most entertainment I got out of this whole movie-going experience.

So anyway, we're now in full soap opera mode for the remainder of the film. Smoke begins to reexamine his life and Kid continues on his quest to be the King of Cali. More romance. More races. More musical montages!

It culminates with the big race between Kid and Smoke with the added stipulation that the loser has to quite racing. I won't give away the winner because how it all plays out would take too much explaining and, frankly, it's just not worth the effort. The ending is so lame even the guy who wrote a 33-page dissection of HOUSE OF THE DEAD doesn't have to patience to go into details. It just radiates the same kind of "Who really cares?" factor that the ending to THE KARATE KID III did.

I will say that BIKER BOYZ ends at the finish line where father and son have a heart to heart talk before one rides off into the sunset leaving the other to celebrate. Despite the fact that this was the big race even the other bikers had been dying to see and every other race in the movie has had bikers lined up along the side of the road all the way to the finish line, this one takes place on an empty dirt road and nobody is waiting at the finish line. They do all come driving up after the race having been kind enough to wait until the two had that father-son talk before interrupting to celebrate with the winner. Have I mentioned how lame this movie is?

But what about the racing scenes; after all, that is what this film should have been about, right? Well, they're dull, generic, and utterly lacking in excitement. The bike races are filmed in a manner mostly using close-ups of the people on the bikes or of the front tires or rider P.O.V. shots. Not only is there generally no sense of velocity, it really is hard to get excited about who's going to win when the race is filmed in a manner where the audience isn't given any perspective into the logistics of the race itself.

I was amused by a scene where the Biker Boyz are driving down the freeway at night and doing stunts where they hang off the side of their bikes with metal strapped to the soles of their feet for added sparking fun. To this day I remain amazed I haven't heard about some idiots getting killed trying to recreate this stunt.

Perhaps a more appropriate title for BIKER BOYZ would have been THE FAST AND THE RESTLESS since it is more of a soap opera than a racing movie. And Lord knows I was restless watching it. It would make a great salt & pepper double feature with SUPERCROSS: THE MOVIE (REVIEW HERE), another dull racing bike flick with more tepid angst than thrilling action and an ending where the wrong guy wins.

And remember kids, "Burn rubber. Not your soul." Whatever the hell that means.