If you feel the need for speed in John Singleton's sluggish sequel to "The Fast and the Furious" then remember: just say no.

But gobbling amphetamines may be the only way to stay awake through this anaemic actioner.

The 'original' was, like, "Point Break" with cars, dude - an exuberant joy ride through LA's street-racing underworld, starring Vin Diesel as a muscle-headed heist-master, first betrayed and then befriended by Paul Walker's compromised cop.

With its frenetic FX and red-blooded revelry in fast cars and hot girls (and vice versa), it was the best Don Simpson flick Don Simpson never made - a simplistic, brash, lunken-headed laugh. Never mind that it wasn't really any good - it was fun.

Salary demands precipitated Diesel's exit from part two, so we pick up with pretty (vacant) boy Walker, now an ex-cop earning his keep in illegal road-racing. When the Feds come calling about his prior misdemeanours, he must team with old friend and ex-con Roman Pearce (rapper/model Tyrese) to infiltrate the murky world of an Argentinean-born, Miami-based drug dealer, played with sour-faced boredom by a spray-tanned Cole Hauser.

None of this is necessarily any duller, or dumber, than "The Fast...", but the execution is decidedly Reliant Robin. John Singleton's direction lacks the va-va-voom of Rob Cohen's efficient, energy-injected set-pieces, while Walker is a charisma vacuum.

With his blond, surfer-type looks, he's fine until he opens his mouth - at which point Keanu Reeves starts to look a lot like Marlon Brando. Tyrese is little better, and the action mostly comprises these two shouting moronically at each other over monotonous high-speed chases.

The promotional taglines proclaim this to be, variously, "2Cool", "2Bold", "2Sexy", and "2Tuff" - it's simply "2Tedious".