Michael Bay can blow almost anything up and still make it look good on camera, and this he insists for almost 3 hours in BAD BOYS II. I've purposely avoided this overstuffed, overlong sequel to Bay's first film BAD BOYS. I don't hate Michael Bay nor his approach of mindless and over-amped blockbusters, but I wouldn't want to waste my time on the 2 and a half hours of empty-headed drivel that BAD BOYS II had to offer. But when it was on TV, and with time to spare, I thought it couldn't be all that bad. I mean, I'm probably one of the few people who like a Bay's Armageddon or PEARL HARBOR.
And yet, despite a few enjoyable moments, it really was THAT bad. The action is brisk and exciting at first, but then it goes on and on and on until Bay has nothing more to blow up. The filler of a story (I tried my best not to refer to it as a "plot") concerns our Narcotic agent heroes Marcus (Will Smith) and Mike (Martin Lawrence) going after a drug kingpin (Jordi Molla). But it's really just an empty barrage of action scene after action scene, each one bigger than the last. Worse, Bay can't help thinking of himself as an auteur by shooting the action sequences in either slow-mo (a trick he over uses here) or with fast cuts that make it almost impossible to know what's happening.
BAD BOYS II is so loud and obnoxious that Bay couldn't even keep it down a notch during the "talking" scenes (in Bay's world, everyone talks trash). Plus the idea of humor in the movie is beyond tasteless. Smith and Lawrence's banter are occasionally amusing, but a chase sequence where Smith and Lawrence run over a couple of corpses dropping from a truck or a scene where they see two rats having sex in a graphic manner are just too much (and painfully, there are more). I find no problem with a big, loud, and dumb blockbuster, but BAD BOYS II insists that it can bigger, louder, and dumber than usual. It represents the most aimless attempt any blockbuster could commit: aim low and miss desperately. This is Bay's worst movie until his recent TRANSFORMERS sequel.
Rating: *1/2 out of 5.
And yet, despite a few enjoyable moments, it really was THAT bad. The action is brisk and exciting at first, but then it goes on and on and on until Bay has nothing more to blow up. The filler of a story (I tried my best not to refer to it as a "plot") concerns our Narcotic agent heroes Marcus (Will Smith) and Mike (Martin Lawrence) going after a drug kingpin (Jordi Molla). But it's really just an empty barrage of action scene after action scene, each one bigger than the last. Worse, Bay can't help thinking of himself as an auteur by shooting the action sequences in either slow-mo (a trick he over uses here) or with fast cuts that make it almost impossible to know what's happening.
BAD BOYS II is so loud and obnoxious that Bay couldn't even keep it down a notch during the "talking" scenes (in Bay's world, everyone talks trash). Plus the idea of humor in the movie is beyond tasteless. Smith and Lawrence's banter are occasionally amusing, but a chase sequence where Smith and Lawrence run over a couple of corpses dropping from a truck or a scene where they see two rats having sex in a graphic manner are just too much (and painfully, there are more). I find no problem with a big, loud, and dumb blockbuster, but BAD BOYS II insists that it can bigger, louder, and dumber than usual. It represents the most aimless attempt any blockbuster could commit: aim low and miss desperately. This is Bay's worst movie until his recent TRANSFORMERS sequel.
Rating: *1/2 out of 5.