Apparently only good enough to warrant a pre-summer-season release, Fast and the Furious pulls into theaters this weekend with the reunited cast from 2001’s original. Re-pairing bald baritone Vin Diesel with Ken doll-handsome Paul Walker – as well as throwing Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster back into the mix – is supposed to be this fourth installment’s enticing calling card (ooooh, they’re kickin’ it old school!). Yet if the series was ever worthwhile, it wasn’t during Diesel and Walker’s maiden outing but, rather, during Walker’s turn alongside Diesel replacement Tyrese in John Singleton’s 2 Fast 2 Furious, an adventure whose gleeful inanity was perfectly encapsulated by its title. With a plot too perfunctory to have been remembered by yours truly, Singleton’s sequel amped up its predecessor’s template to ludicrous heights, which made perfect sense given that there’s nothing to these car-thieving, street-racing sagas save for their manic auto-erotic madness, comprised of screeching tires, bodalicious babes, periodic shootouts, and stunts, stunts, stunts. Whereas director Rob Cohen took his dim-witted material at least slightly seriously, Singleton makes no such mistake. While his entry won’t be making the cut for any AFI action-film lists, its consistent willingness to indulge in extremeness – from cars taking turbo-boosting flight, to the raft of groan-worthy one-liners spouted by Walker and Tyrese, to the neon-flashy aesthetic – turns the proceedings into a self-consciously goofy, tongue-in-cheek live-action Grand Theft Auto cartoon.