The first F&Fwas a breath of fresh air; the fourth is all fumes, writes DONALD CLARKE.

OKAY. Now this showcases a genuinely pioneering class of laziness. These people can’t even be bothered to come up with a new title for their film. How did the conversation go? “Well I was going to add a colon and put the number four after the title, but, dude, the colon key is, like,

way

over to the right of the keyboard. Man, they don’t pay me enough to reach that far. I just deleted “the” and put an ampersand where “and” use to be. Time for a brewski?”

So, eight years after The Fast and the Furiousscreeched through cinemas, the fourth film in the automotive sequence comes our way. It's called Fast & Furiousand it makes the original look like . . . Oh, man, they don't pay me enough to write punch lines. You got any skins? Actually, to be fair, The Fast and the Furiouswas rather good. Based on a magazine article, it featured some cracking car chases and made genuinely interesting observations about Los Angeles's street racing scene.

The 2009 model is, sadly, every bit as sloppily assembled as its title would suggest. Diesel, who has made only one cameo appearance since the first episode, returns as a good-hearted thief with a taste for fast cars and tight T-shirts. Cursed with the sort of inert face and sullen vocal timbre that suggest the existence of hidden psychic shallows, Diesel only ever opens up when, wrench in hand, he is bent over the engine of a shiny car.

Over several such sessions, he re-establishes relations with dishy Paul Walker, an FBI agent who used to hang with Diesel’s crew, and the two men set out to track down a particularly evil drug dealer. Mr Walker works mostly within the law. Vin owes allegiance to the great god Vroom! alone.

Even on its own debased terms, Fast Furious must be accounted a failure. These things exist to propel turbo-charged Japanese cars down city streets, but, over a surprisingly sluggish 107 minutes, the film manages only to organise three significant car chases. The rest of the film is taken up with an awful lot of muttering over engines and a great deal of bolt tightening.

Still, F&Fwill probably do well enough to spur a fifth episode. What will they call it? Fast 'n' Furious? Fast/Furious. Fast + Furious. The possibilities are endless.

Directed by Justin Lin. Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster. 15A cert, gen release, 107 min★