Rating: 
Summary: Joy Ride (starring Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, Leelee Sobieski)
Review: Wow. This movie creeped me out worse than Final Destination did. The acting is actually pretty good, altough Matthew Kimbrough kind of hams it up a little too much. As for the car chase scenes, there are a lot of people who are saying it looks like a rip-off of Jeepers Creepers. Well, ordinarily I might agree... except that I will almost guarantee you that filming of this movie was finished by the team Jeepers Creepers was released.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best pure thrillers of the new decade.
Review: As I started watching Joy Ride, I wasn't necessarily sure what to expect. Yeah, the trailers made the film look like a frightening ride, but the previews also seemed to give most of the plot away, and the box office returns were surprisingly low for a teen-based thriller (JR actually somehow grossed less money than Swimfan?!). Well, have no fear; even though the trailer does give too much away (avoid it if you can), Joy Ride is an intense, nail-biting thriller that surpassed my expectations. Paul Walker stars as college student Lewis Thomas. He's just bought a car and is on his way to Colorado to pick up Venna (Leelee Sobieski), the girl he's always had a crush on, and take her home to New Jersey. But on the way, he stops in Salt lake City to bail out his brother, Fuller (Steve Zahn, who's absolutely marvelous), who he hasn't seen in five years. Fuller decides to tag along with his brother and even has a CB radio inserted into his car. That's when Fuller decides to play a joke on a gravelly-voiced trucker who calls himself Rusty Nail. But this little prank has an unexpected backfire, and Fuller and Lewis suddenly find themselves in a deadly road game of cat-and-mouse. Plot-wise, Joy Ride is heavily reminiscent of Duel and Breakdown, with maybe a little bit of The Hitcher thrown in for good measure. The fairly young cast will probably remind some of recent slasher films such as Scream or I Know What You Did Last Summer. But you'd be wrong to merely place this as another teeny-bopper thriller that's simply out to crank as much cash as possible from its unassuming audience. From first scene to the very last (and I do mean VERY last), Joy Ride is gripping, heart-pounding entertainment. What director John Dahl has done is take an old, but quite intriguing premise (the road-trip horror/thriller) and craft it into a funny, scary, and suspenseful thrill ride that stumbles only a few times throughout its entire running time. Dahl's great with both the physical action and the psychological head games. There are the chase scenes, which are exhilarating and furiously intense. Yeah, they don't feature the mayhem of the car chases in Gone in Sixty Seconds or The Fast and the Furious but they're far more effective because you actually care about the characters, the situation, and the outcome. Psychological thrills aren't as prevalent, but are effective. For almost the entire film, you only hear Rusty Nail's voice, so the fact that he could be anybody our protagonists encounter adds that much more to the suspense. It's also more frightening not knowing what he looks like, and his voice alone is enough to creep you out (see if you can guess which actor voices him). The performances are overall quite good. Pretty-boy Paul Walker is showing improvement with every film he makes (he was awful in The Skulls and is decent here; quite impressive, I might say). Leelee Sobieski is like a teenage Helen Hunt, and I can't really seem to look beyond that. But the scene-stealer is top-billed (yes!) Steve Zahn, delivering a terrific performance that would be worthy of an Oscar nomination in a fair world. This man is hilarious, with a carefree attitude that feels entirely genuine and addictive. And when all the on-screen horror begins, he seems so convincingly terrified, you can't help but keep your eyes glued to the screen. He's also got great chemistry with Walker, and I wouldn't mind seeing these two playing siblings again in another film. Like I said the film does make a few stumbles. Around the half-way mark, the movie inexplicably slows down for a lengthy breather, which isn't paced very well, though it does feature a hilarious improv bit from Steve Zahn when he encounters a group of rednecks. The cat-and-mouse road games are quite elaborate and unlikely, with Rusty Nail knowing seemingly everything about these brothers and staying one step ahead of them the whole time. That's actually only a minor complaint, considering that the elaboracy quickly builds suspense, since you're never certain what's going to happen next (take, for instance, the hair-raising scene with the road signs and the car trunk). Then there's Rusty Nail himself, who at the end, you get a few brief glimpses at. Dahl probably shouldn't have let us get that good a look at his physical appearance, but just as bad is why they didn't use the same actor who voices the part to also play the part (if you know who I'm talking about, then you'll know how genuinely creepy this guy can act and look). But these problems are hardly detrimental. The slow middle is just a gear-up for the last 1/3 (about 35 minutes), which features one high-octane, frightening set-piece after another at a non-stop pace, all aided by Marco Beltrami's excellent score, probably his best yet (it's derivative of his work in Scream and Michael Kamen's score in Event Horizon, but it makes for a damn good mix). The last fifteen minutes, in particular, features one of the most exciting and chilling finales I've seen in years. Don't let anyone spoil it for you. The DVD displays four (!) alternate endings for this film, including one that runs 29 minutes! Having seen all these conclusions, I can say with confidence the one Dahl chose to go with is the best. Joy Ride was unfairly ignored at the box office, but now on DVD and video, it'll hopefully find the large fan base it should have received. This film was released the same year as Jeepers Creepers, that other "psycho truck driver chasing after teen siblings" thriller, which I also highly recommend and would make a good double bill.
**** 1/2 out of *****
Rating:
Summary: John Dahl is a genius
Review: Add Joy Ride to the list of must-see Dahl films. Like The Last Seduction and Red Rock West, Joy Ride takes quirky characters and sticks them into increasingly bizzare and dangerous circumstances. And this time around there's plenty of action to boot. Walker is much better than he was in TFATF and Steve Zahn is as usual outstanding.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Ride
Review: Roadrage is a thrilling road movie that engages its audience, respects their level of patience and delivers the goods, via a truck storming down the highway. College freshman Lewis (Paul Walker from the Fast and The Furious) is embarking on a road trip to pick up his dream girl, Venna (Helen Hunt look alike Leelee Sobieski from Deep Impact and Joan of Arc). On the road he detours to go bail his loser brother out of gaol, Fuller (played by Steve Zahn from Happy Texas and Riding in Cars with Boys). Lewis and Fuller lure a truckie by the name of "Rusty Nails" into a fake engagement with a fictional character called "Candy Cane". The stunt goes horribly wrong which sets the pretext for a 'road-rage' scenario, in which the unseen but eerily voiced Rusty Nails unleashes a campaign of fear and terror upon the trio as a payback for their cheap and cruel stunt. Director John Dahl (Redrock West and The Last Seduction) is terrific at cranking up tension and thoughtfully spares the audience much of the ridiculousness that other teen road-trip movies all have in common. Zahn is a real scene-stealer and has some great lines that provide terrific comic relief while pretty boy Walker does his best with a mediocre character. 'Miss Personality' Leelee Sobieski is as always pretty lame, and this 'performance' is no exception. She is at her best when she is bound, gagged and unable to move. This film is a real 'edge of your seat' thriller that hits all the right nerves.
Rating: 
Summary: Generation X Version Of DUEL
Review: The premise of JOY RIDE seems like a pretty good one. Two brothers (Paul Walker; Steve Zahn) with a penchant for doing the irresponsible play a practical joke on a trucker named Rusty Nail at a backwater Wyoming motel, only to have this trucker come after him on the open road and the police not take them nearly seriously enough. The horror escalates when they bring in Walker's girlfriend (Leelee Sobieski), and she becomes ensnared in the trucker's murderous rampage with them. In essence, this is a Generation X version of Steven Spielberg's 1971 suspense masterpiece DUEL, ratcheted up with plenty of SCREAM/URBAN LEGEND-type shocks, salty language, and violence. Unfortunately, however, these additions to this plot about teen pranks and road rage diminish its effectiveness. This is nowhere near the masterpiece that DUEL is, because its premise is structured to cater to a teen-horror audience wanting cheap thrills instead of the realistic, unsettling psychological terror of Spielberg's film. The difference between JOY RIDE and DUEL is evident in the main characters. With DUEL, Spielberg and legendary screenwriter Richard Matheson constructed a very terrifying situation of an innocent motorist, played by Dennis Weaver, who does nothing more than pass a road-hogging oil truck on a California highway and then is mercilessly pursued by that truck and its psychopathic driver. Weaver, however, was someone whose shoes we were put right into as individuals. In contrast, the Walker and Zahn characters are drawn up as ciphers by co-screenwriter J.J. Abrahams and director John Dahl, and they act so inanely that I almost wanted Rusty Nail (Ted Levene) to rub them out halfway through. Sobieski's character, though small in comparison with Walker's and Zahn's, is perhaps the best-drawn character in this whole road rage tale; and near the climax, she plays the typical young-person damsel in distress. Dahl does a very good job with the action scenes and the bleak photography of the Wyoming landscape, which almost comes out of a Peckinpah western. But the film itself is badly let down by two leads who generate too little sympathy and a premise with not much in it that's overtly memorable. This is why, like THE RAGE: CARRIE 2, which tried to bring the story of Brian DePalma's masterpiece CARRIE into the SCREAM/URBAN LEGEND era, JOY RIDE is only so-so in bringing DUEL's road rage premise into today's teen-horror world and falls short of the mark.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies ever !
Review: I saw "Joy Ride" with five of my friends and EVERYBODY said, it's one of the best movies they have ever seen(we are all 15). The girls loved Paul Walker, the boys loved Leelee Sobieski and we all laughed, because Steve Zahns humor is so black, it's hilarious. Joy Ride is sometimes scary and sometimes very funny. It's a must-have.
Rating:
Summary: The scariest movie ever made?
Review: ...in all honesty... quite possibly. JOY RIDE is a horror masterpiece from acclaimed director, John Dahl. This film manages to nail-biting and hilarious at the same time. It includes a button-pushing score by Marco Beltrami, gorgeous cinematography, a snappy script, and a talented cast including Paul Walker, Steve Zahn, and Leelee Sobieski (Zahn is a real stand-out). If you REALLY wanna be scared, don't miss this scary, funny, and solid film! It is excellent!
Rating:
Summary: DON'T OPEN THE DOOR!!!!!!!!!, DON'T OPEN THE DOOR !!!!!!!!!!
Review: JOY RIDE is one of the years most exciting and intense rides. Director John Dahl directs a wonderful young cast through a smart, well-paced script that provides a great deal of suspense and thrills, all of which add to the effect that the final showdown will have. There was not a moment in the film that my interest dwindled, and when it was over, I wanted to keep watching.
Rating:
Summary: Joy Ride
Review: After seeing this movie-I don't like trucks-they are creepy looking-and you can't help imaging that they are normal. I have this thing on my wall about road rage and itsays that this crazed trucker tried to kill this one innocent driver on the highway-so there is your spoof!
Rating:
Summary: A fabulous A-movie !!!!!!!
Review: The acting is first rate and believable, at no point do you shake your head and find charakters too stupid for words, and the fact that our likeable protagonists are being chased down by a psycho trucker (and not flying demon or some other denizen of today's ...fests) makes the movie realistic and therefore believable. Nothing to dislike in this movie. 10/10
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