Here are some words you won't hear many women saying this weekend: "Hey, let's go see Driven!" After all, it is the ultimate guy flick. How's this for a pedigree? It is written by Sylvester Stallone and directed by Renny Harlin. Not to mention it's a car-racing movie; that just packs the girls in!

Car racing films are not particularly successful - most likely because non-racing fans just don't care, and racing fans would rather see the real thing. Renny Harlin milks the subject matter for all it's worth, however, and manages to make the CART circuit seem pretty exciting for good stretches of time. Unfortunately, there are only so many scenes with computer generated car crashes, loudly pulsing music, and shots of scantily clad women that a person can take before boredom kicks in.

Driven opens with a loud musical montage depicting the swift rise of young CART driver Johnny Bly. He's fast overtaking the current CART champion, Beau Brandenberg. Clearly rattled, Brandenberg jettisons his fiancée, Sophia, in hopes of focusing more on his driving. Beau may have been onto something, because when Sophia catches Johnny's interest, he is suddenly stricken with Southern California Syndrome, a.k.a. the inability to drive. This spurs Johnny's racing team into action, and when threats and sports clichés fail to do the trick, they call ex-driver Joe Tanto.

As Joe Tanto, Sylvester Stallone plays yet another sports hero with a disgraced past. He was the best of drivers; he was the worst of drivers, etc. To illustrate his talent, he drops three quarters on the racing track, which he retrieves by running over them with his car. This may sound silly, but it gives Harlin the opportunity to make some really cool shots using CGI quarters. If you enjoy this scene, rest assured you will get to see it again using manhole covers later on in the show. There are other scenes that will be repeated endlessly: scantily clad women, bouncing up and down, cheering, bending over. Close-ups of pretty girls slowly eating hot dogs, churros -- subtle stuff like that.

To keep female audience members from rioting, Harlin and Stallone have wisely chosen to cast three very attractive young men as the CART drivers. The problem is, Kip Pardue, Til Schweiger, and Cristián de la Fuente don't get enough screen time to make their characters very interesting.

As the young driving sensation, Jimmy Bly, Kip Pardue (Remember the Titans) is made to spend over half of the film in a state of perplexed frustration. Tanto is supposedly there to help him rediscover his love of driving. But, we never get to see what is so exceptional about Bly that would make us root for him to make a comeback.

Cristián de la Fuente plays Memo Moreno, Jimmy's backup driver, and Joe Tanto's replacement not only in the racing team, but also in his marriage. Played by bitch specialist Gina Gershon, Joe's ex, Cathy, is an emasculating harpy hell-bent on winning -- it makes you wonder what would happen if she were behind the wheel.

The only other character that could come close to being a villain is Jimmy's CART rival, Beau Brandenberg. Played by the German actor and director Til Schweiger, Brandenberg is cold and efficient. How else could he discard his lovely fiancee? True, Sophia (Estella Warren) does seem to be cast for the sole purpose of tossing her blond hair and a lovely, if out of place, synchronized swimming routine, but she is pretty, no?

Equipped with few empathetic characters, and a plot that is straight out of the sports genre handbook, Driven relies almost entirely on driving sequences for dramatic effect. With action veteran Renny Harlin behind the camera, there are exceptional moments. A preposterous racing car chase through the streets Chicago is highly entertaining, as are the tension filled moments on the racing track. The problem is, what drives Driven is pure spectacle, and after a while, it runs out of gas.