‘‘Torque,’’ the fastest, slickest, most rip-snortingly puerile movie ever made about the hormonal delights of motorcycle racing, resembles the real world only in that the characters breathe oxygen and have some command of the verbal medium known as ‘‘speech.’’ The rest could be used to fertilize corn crops.

OK, OK, I admit it. Despite its essential excrementiousness, ‘‘Torque’’ is kind of a hoot. It isn't often that you see the mechanics of adolescent male wish-fulfillment laid open so nakedly, with so little guile. By comparison, it makes ‘‘The Fast and the Furious’’ look like a nuanced exercise in subtlety and restraint.

New Zealand-born actor Martin Henderson (‘‘The Ring’’) plays Cary Ford, a leather-clad smoothie with no apparent vocation or visible means of support who spends every hour of the day riding a souped-up motorbike across the dusty highways of the California desert. We'll just call him a ‘‘motorcycle guy.’’ Though the movie purportedly takes place in Barstow and Los Angeles, the terrain is actually far more mythical; a land of steroid freaks and boob jobs, where coolness is currency and everybody has an angry crotch-rocket nestled between their legs. In the beginning, we glimpse a roadsign that reads ‘‘Cars suck.’’

When Ford is framed for drugs and murder by a white supremacist gang leader (Matt Schulze), he finds himself on the run from both an Inglewood street boss (Ice Cube, sneering, ridiculous) and a hipster FBI agent (Adam Scott) so ironically self-aware that he pokes fun at his own rock star haircut. Luckily, pretty-boy Ford has a racially diverse duo of helpers to watch his back, not to mention his old lady, Shane (blonde bombshell Monet Mazur), an ace mechanic who, as one character puts it, ‘‘knows how to take care of herself.’’

You have to hand it to director Joseph Kahn, making his feature debut after directing music videos for the likes of Beyoncé Knowles — he isn't afraid to push the absolute limits of nitro- burning absurdity. In one sequence, Ford and Cube's character, Trey, hit a ramp at full speed and jump onto the roof of a moving train. Later, Ford and the villain wage a 200-mph street race through downtown L.A., kicking each other, punching, scraping ... yet somehow never falling down. Hey, you gotta love the pacing — Kahn saves the most outlandish action for the very end.

Still, I'm curious to see what this director will do in the future. Some of the visual compositions in ‘‘Torque’’ are outstanding, and Kahn's inventive eye for shots — particularly when Trey and Ford stare each other down through the strobing gaps of a speeding train — suggest he could join the likes of Spike Jonze (‘‘Adaptation’’) and Antoine Fuqua (‘‘Training Day’’) as a director who successfully makes the crossover from Britney Spears to real cinema. Now if he can just get off the speed.

Torque
Starring: Martin Henderson, Ice Cube, Monet Mazur
Playing: Opens Friday at theaters Valleywide Rating: PG-13 (violence, sexuality, language and drug references)
Running time: 1 hour, 21 min.
Grade: C