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Remember how previews often
ruin a movie because they give away all the good stuff? Well, this
is not that.
"Bad Boys II" has more funny jokes, more heart-thumping action and
more shameless doses of adrenaline and excessive gore than anybody
could ever cram into a little-old movie preview. Oh, and definitely
more explosions. Don't even try to count the explosions.
And the chase scenes? Better than "T3." Better than "The Matrix
Reloaded." They're easily the chase scenes of the summer.
Clocking in at 135 minutes, the movie overstays its welcome -- but,
what the heck, the unnecessary length allows for yet another rockin'
chase scene and more big-boom pyrotechnics.
What we have here is a puppy with real bite, a big, buddy cop movie
set in Miami with two big, likable stars -- namely funny Will Smith
and funnier Martin Lawrence.
Reunited from 1995's cash cow "Bad Boys," they're like a modern-day,
souped-up Abbott and Costello. When they're not arguing in pointed
one-liners, they're firing guns. Or doing both at the same time.
Their movie overflows with drugs, money laundering, profanity, car
crashes, flying body parts, buckets of blood and, yes, squeaking
rats busily making more rats.
Led by perennial hot-dog director Michael Bay ("The Rock,"
"Armageddon," "Pearl Harbor"), "Bad Boys II" from the get-go is a
movie on speed dial. The script's most often repeated word is
"whoa!"
Moviegoers should exit dumbstruck. By Bay's high-school-level
audacity in his choices. By the relentless, nearly inexplicable
explosions. By the movie's sheer testosterone level. By how
commanding Smith and Lawrence are. By how hot co-star Gabrielle
Union ("Deliver Us From Eva," "Bring It On") is. By the
thrill-a-second chase scenes. The great dead things. The
mind-blowing plot contrivances. And the unabashed, show-off
cinematography where sometimes the ultimate aim of the ever-moving
camera seems to be to glance up a woman's skirt.
Before the opening credits have fully rolled, we're whisked to
Amsterdam, then Miami and the Gulf of Mexico and treated to quick
visions of speed boats, divers, a spy plane, Coast Guard ships,
waves of water and a buzzing helicopter.
Later there's a Russian gang, a Hispanic gang and a Jamaican gang.
Briefcases are stuffed with cash. There are countless ecstasy pills.
Anger management lessons. A funeral home loaded with dead bodies.
Cuban troops. And a severed finger found in a kitchen next to a
crock pot.
It all just makes you want to say, "Uh, hello?" But "Bad Boys II"
isn't a movie you try too hard to follow. It's one you just get on
and ride.
Fasten your seatbelts; it's bumpy.
During filming, Bay and crew outraged many real-life Miami motorists
when a much-used highway was shut down for several days. But what
the rest of us get in return are stunning chase scenes. They're so
fast, so furious and edited with such precision they nearly match
the knuckle-gripping action in "Ronin." It's not just the speed that
is exhilarating, but what falls or gets tossed into the roadway as
obstacles.
So much of the rest of the movie is just preening by an obviously
talented director. As he so often does with his movies, Bay has
clearly chosen to excise the word "art" from his vocabulary. The
body count is excessively high; the effects of violence never given
a moment's concern. Bay's only into grabbing a moviegoer by the
throat. In "Bad Boys II," that means a slo-mo tracking of a bullet
from gun to a thug's neck that's so involved, so vicious it makes
TV's "CSI" look like kindergarten blood and guts.
Bay's energetic camera and propensity for full-on action is used not
only to excite, but to mask deficiencies in his story. In "Bad Boys
II," there's not a single plot problem that can't be solved with a
fusillade of bullets.
Sadly, it makes "Bad Boys II" less than what it could be -- even if
it is a lot of fun to watch. |
