Bad Boys 2 (2003) Dir: Michael Bay
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The first film in this popular cop action franchise was an underwhelming experience for me, but I maintained hope that I'd find enjoyment in this Michael Bay directed sequel. It has a similar audience score to the original, which isn't the worst thing in the world. Even so, I kept my expectations fairly level, just in case.
This film was shot horribly, in all honesty. I thought it looked extremely corny. It was very stylised n the typical Michael Bay way - it was ugly to look at. The way some of it was shot, made certain scenes look like a cheap adult film. From a terribly shot car chase that lasted way too long, to a revolving shot, that was cool in concept, but vertigo-inducing in execution, this film was just not good from a cinematography standpoint.
Unfortunately, I really did not enjoy the writing of the film at all, especially the dialogue. It was full of crass, childish humour, comprised of mediocre comedy, odd recurring jokes, and a lot of dated dialogue which took aim at a lot of social and ethnic minorities. The occasional joke did land, but not enough for me to truly say I enjoyed myself.
In regards to the narrative, I felt like the main plot was exciting and interesting, but suffered due to the film's lacklustre pacing and poorly edited screenplay. There were a number of scenes that lasted way too long to be worth their respective pay-offs. This was not helped by the irritating habit for the cop characters to straight up abuse and ignore the law continously to achieve their goals.
Will Smith continued to show his action star credentials, with another flamboyant and exuberant display in one of the film's main roles. I didn't find his performance as enjoyable as the first film, but he was still the strongest element on the screen. His natural charisma carried a lot of the tepid action and tired comedy.
Martin Lawrence, on the other hand, was really not too great, in my view. He was very much going over-the-top for the sake of going over-the-top. It stopped being funny very quickly, but, unfortunately, this trait was his character's whole shtick for literally the whole film. As such, Lawrence was very repetitive, and kind of boring, if I'm being honest.
Jordi Mollà played a typical antagonist; hot-headed, angry, and violent. His performance was at least more memorable than his predecessor's, but I wouldn't exactly call his character, or performance, a classic villain portrayal. It was very tropey, but I suppose it did the job of providing a villain for the protagonists to go after.
Gabrielle Union provided the most enjoyable performance of the supporting cast members, but deserved more screentime than she had. There were also various other supporting actors who were worth noting for their fairly entertaining roles; Peter Stormare, Theresa Randle, Joe Pantoliano, and Michael Shannon.
Overall, this, much like the first film, is fine for a casual evening's entertainment, but fails to provide much more than that. I found it to be pretty mediocre, personally, although fans of Bay's style will definitely get along with it a lot better. I can appreciate why people do enjoy these films, but they really aren't much more than basic, fairly forgettable, action flicks to me.
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