Policial em Apuros 2

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.

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.

Sometimes I go back and re-read my old movie reviews to see how I've progressed as a reviewer, to learn what I can do better or to make updates. It's an especially useful exercise when I'm reviewing the sequel to a movie that I reviewed earlier, and now I've been writing full-length reviews long enough that I have that opportunity more often. When I re-read a review, sometimes I realize that I could've done a better job, and other times I find that I hit the nail on the head the first time. This is one of those times.

Exactly two years to the day after I saw the cop comedy "Ride Along", I saw "Ride Along 2" (PG-13, 1:41). In my 2014 review, I complained that the original featured a Kevin Hart who was doing little more than "trying to update (Eddie) Murphy's signature high-pitched, motor-mouthed, role-playing Axel Foley character". Hart does the same thing in this movie – and the script (written by two of the four guys who wrote the original) goes even further into "Beverly Hills Cop" territory by taking a police detective (Ice Cube's character) from his home base to a seaside resort location where he partners with local cops and finds himself pursuing a drug dealer who is masquerading as a pillar of the community. The main difference is, in "Ride Along 2", we get two cops taking that road trip – one doing the real detecting – and one providing the comic relief. Eddie Murphy did both in his BHC movies, but the division of labor in "Ride Along 2" works a bit better than it did in its predecessor (unlike the case of "Beverly Hills Cop 2").

This film picks up about a year after the last one left off with former high school security guard Ben Barber (Kevin Hart) itching to become a real cop, while planning on marrying Angela (Tika Sumpter), the sister of hard-nosed Atlanta detective James Payton (Ice Cube). As the sequel begins, Ben has successfully joined the APD, but is still in his probationary period. He is deep into planning his wedding to Angela, with the help of aggressive and stubborn wedding planner Sherri Shepherd, with whom he clashes as he's more involved in the wedding preparations than most guys would be. James is working with Ben on actual cases, but doesn't think Ben is up to advancing to the rank of detective.

When James comes up with a lead that ties an Atlanta drug dealer to a Miami computer hacker called AJ (Ken Jeong), Angela talks James into letting Ben ride along too – both to get him out of her hair one week before the wedding – and so Ben can try, once and for all, to show James what he can do as a cop. As they check in with the local Miami police, they meet tough homicide detective Maya (Olivia Munn) who ends up working with them as they pursue their leads. James and Ben catch up with the nerdy AJ who has information pointing to Miami businessman Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt) as a drug kingpin.

Even though Hart seems to be copying the Eddie Murphy template as the movie places it back into the "Beverly Hills Cop" formula doesn't mean "Ride Along 2" doesn't have its moments. Ben is still pretty manic in his approach to policing, but he's more of a threat to himself than he is to society, and James is still highly skeptical of Ben's potential, but they do start to jell a little this time around. They both have the ability to make us laugh (as does Jeong), but many of the jokes and gags still fall flat. Ben's obsession with video games is well-used as part of the plot and in a great sight gag, but the movie's plot points feel very contrived and as if they only exist to get us from one semi-humorous moment to the next. The sequel's bigger budget gives us more explosions and miscellaneous mayhem, but the characterizations beyond the lead characters are one-dimensional. In its opening night, "Ride Along 2" did slightly better than its predecessor and I'm giving this sequel a grade that matches that accomplishment. I deemed 2014's "Ride Along" as worthy of a "C+", slightly below what I consider "recommendation land". "Ride Along 2" gets a "B" – a mild recommendation. At this rate, I may be raving about this franchise by the time we get to "Ride Along 4"... or not. Time will tell.

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.

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.