Bad Boys II

It must be awesome being Michael Bay. I mean, can you imagine any other director who is given mega-budgets every few weeks and told to blow up more than he did in his previous movies? In the first Bad Boys film an air-plane hanger was blown to bits and was swiftly followed by an asteroid being nuked in Armageddon and the destruction of Pearl Harbour in...uh, Pearl Harbour. Not to be undone, Bad Boys 2 has him indulging in not one, but two chaotic car chases where muscle cars which most of us would spend our lives saving up for are torn to pieces like yesterday's newspapers and rounding everything up by detonating a sizable part of Cuba. If this trend continues, there won't be a building left standing in the whole of North America once Transformers is through. Not bad for a smug little geek with a rubbish haircut.

If you've seen the first Bad Boys film, you'll know what to expect. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, a pair of loose cannon cops whose only similarities are their penchants for arguing and getting into gun fights. Lowrey (Smith) is all laid back cool, stylin' and profilin' his way through the Miami underworld while charming the pants off every woman that crosses his path. Burnett on the other hand is an insecure, neurotic and over protective family man. Not only that, but he has a bit of an anger management problem as well and has been half a step away from a severe nervous breakdown for the majority of his adult life. So far, so very similar to any cop orientated buddy movie you've ever seen, but Bad Boys 2 overcomes the total lack of originality thanks to the natural charisma of the stars and the sheer spectacle of its action sequences.

The plot of course is throw away guff designed to hurtle Smith and Lawrence into the thick of as many explosions as possible, but when they bounce off each other this well it's difficult to care. Martin Lawrence has never been a great leading man but somehow, when partnered with Will Smith his career makes perfect sense, his manic edginess being the perfect foil to Smith's effortless charm. You could argue that being on screen with the World's Most Charismatic Man would make anyone look good, but then you'd clearly not have seen the terrible I, Robot, where nobody looked good. Not even the robot.

And then you have the aforementioned action sequences. Yes, we all know they're going to be over the top, but lord almighty, it's still an adrenaline pumping thrill to see them happen. The opening John Woo impression with the Ku Klux Klan is just the starter to a main course that consists of a destruction derby car chase, a close quarters battle with some Rastafarian gang members, a fist fight on a train carriage, ANOTHER insane car chase and a dessert set in Cuba, where a mansion gets destroyed. Throughout, bodies fly off overpasses to go crashing into glass phone boxes, men are riddled with machine gun fire and the balls of fire get bigger and more firey the later they appear. Bad Boys 2 might not be subtle, but it sure as hell is fun.

However, there is a drawback: the running time. It might be an energetic exercise in flashy excess, but did it really need to be two and a half hours long? Entertaining though it is, there comes a point when you've seen enough faceless henchmen getting holes drilled in them and just want to see the villain being brought down. Given the extreme running time, isn't also a bit unusual that Joe Pantoliano's role as the best clichéd police chief in movie history is so small? Maybe they were worried he'd pack the movie into his bags and run off with them like he did the first time around...

Those grumbles aside, there's little complaint to be made about Bad Boys 2. Sure, it's so shallow that I could just as easily have written "Will Smith and Martin Lawrence destroy stuff" and summed up the entire enterprise, but it makes for an exhilarating action movie and the natural successor to all those ones produced in the eighties when brain cells were exchanged for body counts and biceps. Try not to take it seriously and you'll have a blast.

OK, where do I start? This is a sequel to the buddy classic of 1995, Bad Boys. Again we have the usual camaraderie of two old friends who are also partners in the police, non-stop action and stunts that keep the average action junkie interested like myself. As for plot and storyline, I would say Bad Boys 2 has a reasonable one. I could compare Bad Boys 2 to the original, and come up short with anything new but what I do come up with is the same as with the original. Bad Boys 2 gives us more of what the first film had, only this time in 2003 and not 1995.

Weapons change, cars change but the same gist of the film remains the same. Action galore in fact for us action junkies, car chases that end in havoc and chaos. Explosions that tear city blocks apart and the occasional joke preceding each one. A good sequel to follow off from the original and yet again another great action flick for a late Friday night in with your friends.

I think us movie buffs sometimes forget that not all movies are made to have some sort of under lying message that can or will change our lives. That's why it pains me to see some users give this film a bad review because "the dialog is weak" or "the scenery isn't vibrant" or something along those lines. This is not a stab or an insult to you, but what I'm saying is; sometimes movies are made with one intended purpose... ENTERTAINMENT! I could careless if this film had poor actors, poor script, poor lighting, that doesn't matter when you watch an action film. This movie delivers your monies worth too, in my opinion Will Smith and Martin Larwence make such a great team that part of the fun is just watching these two get into it from time to time. And with Michael Bay directing, you know you're going to get some good action scenes. Let's face it, Bad Boys II has one of the best car chase scenes ion recent history, it dominates the dismal over played chase in Matrix Reloaded which was the other big summer sequel of that year. I think all that needs to be said here in a retort is the movie is an action movie ans needs to be looked at as an action movie. To hell with the elements that the Academy looks at, appreciate the film for all the stuff that blows up and the laughs the cast can bring you to.

Well after that blunder of a motion picture called "Pearl Harbour" Micheal Bay bounces back with a better movie here. To his credit though in the few short films he has made so far none of them have bombed. This movie was 10x the action definately, and was actually way funnier than first one. Will Smith was definately more built, much tougher and more in charge, Martin Lawrence stole the show with his silly remarks every 5 seconds but I loved it.

The car chase scene on the highway was way better than the Matrix Reloaded's car chase scene, it puts that one to shame. But this highway chase scene will definately rank up there with T3's. Some parts in this movie were a bit overdone such as the morgue scene, won't get into it but I'll leave it at that, and the rats...that's it! :)

If you are looking for a solid type performance from Will Smith to be a good actor don't bother, this movie was all about pure action, and mindless fun, if that's what you want then go see it, if not don't waste your 2 hours and 40 minutes seeing it. Funny thing is, it didn't feel that long.

Can't wait to see this out on DVD in superbit. A great sequel.

Bad Boys 2 is basically what you'd expect. Everything from the original gets amped up. The story is more ridiculous and less contained. There's no restraint here just pure Bay indulgence. This movie is bonkers but it knows exactly what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. I can respect that and I appreciate this movie more than the original for that very reason.