Bad Boys II

Posted by Greg

November 10, 2007

Run With a Gun for Fun

*** out of *****

I once read an Entertainment Weekly article entitled “Michael Bay is Satan.” Now sure, the director of Bad Boys, Armageddon, The Rock and now Bad Boys II has brought down the ire of many film purists who scream that he throws well-written characters out the window in place of well-written action, but ‘Satan?’ That’s a little harsh, but he does seem the kind of director who certainly requires a nickname. After much thinking tonight, I came up with what I think is a great one - the Spielberg of Mayhem.

This summer movie season has been dubbed the Summer of the Sequel by the American media, and rightly so. But that doesn’t seem to alter the tried and true method of movie marketing: if it worked once, it’ll work again. The name Michael Bay has even developed a following of its own, which happens rarely with directors who are primarily known for blowing stuff up. People know exactly what to expect from a Bay movie and that’s what they go to see. Couple that with the drawing power of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and you have a project that any studio would be a fool not to greenlight.

Bay and ber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer are teamed up once again and set out to make another bullet-riddled corpse of an adventure, and that’s pretty much exactly what happens. The only flick I can really compare this one to this summer has been Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, simply because they both follow the same formula: same director, same cast, similar script, bigger budget. But where Full Throttle derailed (over-directed, too goofy to be serious, too serious to be goofy), Bad Boys II stays right on track. Bay knows his audience almost better than they know themselves and he keeps the train of chaos skillfully on course.

Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) are still working for the Miami Police Department, basking in the pink-neon glow of the city famous for excess. Marcus is still the same family man with a short fuse and Mike is still the same playboy with a fast car. After an informant tips them off to the biggest ecstasy shipment the country has ever seen, they find themselves knee-deep in bullets, drugs and bad guys - as usual. Things get a bit complicated though, when Marcus’ sister Vin (Gabrielle Union), and her DEA team end up investigating the very same drug lord that Mike and Marcus are on to. What happens next? Well, in these troubled times it’s nice to see an example of two government agencies helping each other out while trying to bring in the same bad guy, and that’s what happens. Working together, they figure out that the drugs are being shipped all over the country using a rather inventive (and pretty gruesome) method by a Cuban drug lord. And before you can say “Let’s get ‘im!”, we’re in hot pursuit up the bad-guy chain of command.

Smith and Lawrence don’t quite reach the lofty heights of buddy cop movie perfection that Danny Glover and Mel Gibson set with the Lethal Weapon series, but these two talented comedians are still very fun to watch. That being said, it seemed to me that the relationship between the two characters was a bit too high strung. They spend nearly the entire movie arguing, and where the first Bad Boys portrayed them as best friends who liked to yell at each other, the sequel paints them more as acquaintances who are forced to spend all their time together. Still though, I had to laugh out loud a few times as they do have some very funny exchanges.

The camera seems to be tied to the pair as we follow them from one tip to the next, dodging bullets the whole way. Yes, it’s a movie but when you think about it a bit, their cop methods are laughably fake - if real cops behaved half as unlawful as these two, they’d be tried for high treason. They make the LAPD look like a gang of pacifist choirboys. But the big draw of the film though is - say it with me - the action, and wow, does it ever deliver on that front. Bay seems to have tied a camera to Spiderman and paid him to swing above and beside speeding cars and bullets as they smash through nearly every living and non-living thing in sight. The over-hyped car chase in The Matrix: Reloaded wins for sheer planning, but this one takes the cake for sheer spectacle. I lost count of how many cars went spinning past the camera in 100 mph backflips as Mike and Marcus raced after a cargo truck packed with cars and bad guys with automatic machine guns. Bay handles these scenes with the skill of a veteran pro, bombarding his audience with slick camera moves and quick cuts that keep things moving but at the same time don’t distance or confuse the audience. (His editor deserves a special medal, as it seems no shot lasts longer than three seconds)

The script, by ______________________, certainly knows how far it can push things too, in terms of violence. Make no mistakes, this is a ‘hard R’ film and should definitely not be seen by the kiddies. As an example, it wasn’t enough for a bad guy to get thrown off of a moving car - he had to spin through the air, bounce off of concrete support and fall 5 stories onto a glass kiosk. Bullets fly, blood spatters and by the end of the film, our heroes have gone from solving crimes with guns and humor to storming a Cuban drug fortress with Delta Force commandos. Where do they train these police officers?

The one reservation I had with the movie though was that it sometimes dragged things on a bit too long or bit too much. I don’t have a problem with a movie having one or two almost-endings, but when your popcorn action flick passes the 2 hour and 30 minute mark, it’s time to wrap things up. Also, threatening your daughters date who has just come to your house to pick her up - funny. Threatening him with a gun - not funny. And while I’m complaining, I might as well bring up the music, which always seemed to be precluding a gunfight even in the funny moments; and the sound in the theatre. Movies like this deserve to be seen with a top of the line sound system. Might I humbly suggest that both major theatre chains in Thailand shell out for a THX technician to be brought in to spruce things up a bit.

But for a fun night out, you could do worse than this movie. It offers nothing new and I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a better movie than the first one, but it’s definitely bigger. That’s usually not enough on its own, but when you have a credible cast under the skilled hand of a proven action director, Bad Boys II can hold it’s own against any other kid in the competitive world of the summer movie schoolyard. Go and watch with squeamish glee.

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