Let me clarify something right off the bat... I am not a fanboy who rated this thing a 10 and down votes every negative review here. But I'm also not a hater. I enjoyed parts of the original movie when it came out. Sure it gets a little sillier with each subsequent viewing and there's nothing terribly original about it but it had an infectious style and a solid cast.
To be blunt, I can't even believe this sequel is for real. And I'm shocked how many fans of the first film say they enjoy it. For me this was a complete misfire every step of the way. The plot is ludicrous. Not because it's too complicated but because it just defies logic. It is not a compelling story on any level. It's an excuse to get the boys back in their pea coats and shooting guns in slow motion. There isn't a single plot point that's credible or followed through on. The movie keeps changing what it's really about. It doesn't feel like layers in a mystery are being pulled back. It feels like Duffy had no idea what this was really about and just kept letting the script wander. Characters are introduced halfway through with no real purpose or development.
The acting just flat out sucks. And I like a lot of these actors. Aside from Billy Connolly and Peter Fonda no one understands how to be subtle. They all crank it to eleven and turn themselves into cartoons, not characters. I thought the first one did a much better job of balancing the humor, action, and drama. Duffy appears clueless on how to accomplish that this time out. The bad guys aren't remotely threatening and even the returning detectives are made to look like buffoons at every turn.
The action scenes in the first film contain a lot of creative ideas that aren't shot as well as they could have been. They're not terrible, but not mind blowing. This one is just embarrassing. Every action beat consists of slow motion, techno music, and the brothers standing in plain view and not getting hit once (until the end when the script requires them to).
It also just feels smaller and cheaper than the original. The settings in the first one seemed real and dirty. We got a sense of the blue collar life in Boston. This one feels like it was shot on sitcom sets. And with hardly any extras it feels like our main characters and villains are the only people in the city.
I know you're all going to bury this review because you don't agree but there wasn't a single thing I found redeeming about this movie. Bad script, bad acting, bad directing, bad music, bad editing... it's just bad.
To be blunt, I can't even believe this sequel is for real. And I'm shocked how many fans of the first film say they enjoy it. For me this was a complete misfire every step of the way. The plot is ludicrous. Not because it's too complicated but because it just defies logic. It is not a compelling story on any level. It's an excuse to get the boys back in their pea coats and shooting guns in slow motion. There isn't a single plot point that's credible or followed through on. The movie keeps changing what it's really about. It doesn't feel like layers in a mystery are being pulled back. It feels like Duffy had no idea what this was really about and just kept letting the script wander. Characters are introduced halfway through with no real purpose or development.
The acting just flat out sucks. And I like a lot of these actors. Aside from Billy Connolly and Peter Fonda no one understands how to be subtle. They all crank it to eleven and turn themselves into cartoons, not characters. I thought the first one did a much better job of balancing the humor, action, and drama. Duffy appears clueless on how to accomplish that this time out. The bad guys aren't remotely threatening and even the returning detectives are made to look like buffoons at every turn.
The action scenes in the first film contain a lot of creative ideas that aren't shot as well as they could have been. They're not terrible, but not mind blowing. This one is just embarrassing. Every action beat consists of slow motion, techno music, and the brothers standing in plain view and not getting hit once (until the end when the script requires them to).
It also just feels smaller and cheaper than the original. The settings in the first one seemed real and dirty. We got a sense of the blue collar life in Boston. This one feels like it was shot on sitcom sets. And with hardly any extras it feels like our main characters and villains are the only people in the city.
I know you're all going to bury this review because you don't agree but there wasn't a single thing I found redeeming about this movie. Bad script, bad acting, bad directing, bad music, bad editing... it's just bad.