Ride Along - Next Level Miami

I am a Kevin Hart fan. Some comedians just have the innate ability to make you laugh, and I feel like he has that indescribable ability. My expectations were for low, like for every comedy sequel and I wanted to like this movie. But...

The audience expectations for a comedy sequel are so low it should be relatively straightforward for the screenwriter and director to satisfy us. The situation is perfectly setup for a studio / audience win win. Give us recycled jokes in a new setting, we laugh through a forgettable movie and studio makes bank. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Ride Along 2 falls prey to the usual sequel pitfalls and doesn't even give Kevin Hart room to maneuver.

The best parallel to a recent movie I can think of is The Hangover Part II. Part I was so funny, everyone was going to give Part II a watch, hoping it would top the first installment. Instead you got the sequel trap - recycled jokes (still can be funny), but the bigger budget distracted the director.

That encapsulates Ride Along 2. Unfortunately, the bigger budget means less time for Kevin Hart to be funny and more action scenes, which no one really cares about. Watching the movie, I felt like I had to impatiently wait during the usual foot chase / car chase / shootout scenes to get rewarded with a Kevin Hart joke.

We did not pay money to watch ice cube shoot at bad guys. We wanted to laugh at Kevin Hart. It is so frustrating because the formula for success is so easy to execute. Show us the beginning or ending of action scenes and give Kevin more time to play off the stone faced ice cube. Ice cube doesn't even need to act to play the straight cop, anyone could do it. But instead we get way too long action scenes, romantic ice cube subplot (which is so unrealistic it actually distracts the viewer and takes away from the movie) and less laughs.

If you are on a plane or want to put on a movie as you fall asleep, Ride Along 2 is the play. Don't waste time and money in the actual theater for this one.

Ben Barber (Kevin Hart) is a rookie cop and getting married to Angela Payton. Police detective James Payton (Ice Cube) is going to Miami to track down computer hacker AJ (Ken Jeong). Angela talks her brother into letting Ben join him. They find help from Miami police detective Maya Cruz (Olivia Munn). AJ is involved with villainous Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt).

After the original, I thought the sequel has a chance. I thought the guys' chemistry would make a good buddy cop comedy if they can turn friends. They're still not that friendly but I'm still going to say I'm wrong. Kevin is doing the same thing and it's getting tiresome. Maybe the repetition is getting to me. It's actually getting a little annoying. He may be losing me at this point. It's time he consider something different.

Ice Cube and Kevin Hart return to milk their chemistry from the first Ride Along in the sequel to a movie that was just alright.

This time around Kevin Hart's charter, Ben is a full fledged police officer (in training), who tags along with his future brother-in-law James from Atlanta to Miami to question a suspect.

Though Kevin Hart seems more outrageous in this film as he gets down with some serious slapstick, he is not as funny as he could be. This is a huge problem for Ice Cube's perfect straight man persona who has no real material to bounce off of.

It's even sadder that they have Ken Jeong in the picture and did nothing with it. You'd expect some real good laughs when Jeong and Hart get together in a scene but it did not happen like that.

New characters played by Oliva Munn and Benjamin Bratt were good seasoning on the franchise, but I could still taste the staleness.

It's not a bad movie, it's a decent buddy cop movie with a lot of action, but I was not expecting Lethal Weapon, I was expecting 48 hours and got neither.

Kevin Hart is an interesting case. He's hilariously funny when it comes to his stand-up. But filmmakers have yet to figure out what to do with him in film. With his best performances being Think Like a Man and Get Hard, you start to think about what they did right. Think Like a Man's strength is that it doesn't hyper focus on any one of its well-balanced leads. And with Get Hard- -both Hart's and Will Ferrell's best films in awhile--you have to credit the fact that they both get to take the stage. They both act as the straight man AND the comic foil. But after a failed attempt the first time around, we are offered a second installment in the Ride Along series.

The original Ride Along from 2014 already had audiences feeling like it was just an excuse to make a movie where Hart acts ridiculous, much to Ice Cube's unamusement. And this one is no different. The sequel has a slightly better storyline than its predecessor, but not by much. It copies a lot of the formula from the original.

In this movie, Hart plays Ben, a preliminary detective about to get married. His brother-in-law- to-be, head detective James (Cube), takes him along on a case in Miami to show Ben how he isn't cut out to be in the field.

Hackneyed comedy isn't the only thing that's cliché about this film. Overused tropes are flying left and right. From every one of Ice Cube's foreseen reactions, to the typical action movie lines: "Villain is hosting a party tonight at his mansion. Everyone's expected to be there" or "I'll distract him while you go in."

There are a few laughs scattered throughout. The opening sequence, featuring Tyrese and a bunch of street racers, is the best part of the movie. But Hart just doesn't have anyone to play off of comedically the rest of the way. It's just him doing all the romping. The few moments he has with Ken Jeong are nice, but that's about it. Ice Cube is his definite straight man. And a pretty good one too, as evident with the Jump Street series. But the truth is, Hart is so over-the-top all the time that he almost doesn't even need a straight man. It's already extremely obvious he's being ridiculous that it's nearly insulting that we need someone else to point it out too. When everything around him is too serious, Hart's antics become less believable.

There's nothing definitively bad about this film. It hits all its marks. Almost too well. And that's what makes it blend in with the crowd. This by-the-numbers comedy may not be painful, but it's definitely forgettable.

Twizard Rating: 64

Ice Cube, Benjamin Bratt, Ken Jeong, all fun to watch and good at their craft.

Kevin Hart is not funny. He is the most annoying person. His incessant chatter meant to be humorous is grating to the point of wanting to constantly b**ch slap him. Chris Rock is another who has built a film persona of constant chatter, but he is funny and is good with physical humor. Kevin Hart unfortunately does not have these talents.

DVD rental for $1 when you're sick and have nothing but time on your hands and stuck in bed. Not worth a penny more and not worth time on a sunny day, cloudy day, or rainy day.