Published Jul 27, 2003

Bad Boys II takes place in an alternate reality in which everything is highly explosive and cops get paid enough to dress in haute coture and authentic sports jerseys.

The plot is pretty simple, as is required by a movie that is principally about explosions and gunfire and driving fast. Our heroes, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, play police officers in Miami. Smith plays a richer version of Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies, while Lawrence plays a whiny version of Danny Glover. Are new heroes are partners, of course, who spend their time tracking down drugs and keeping them out of our nightclubs (schools play no role in this movie, bub).

Smith and Lawrence (I could give you their characters’ names, but, hey, the actors just play themselves, so let’s call it like it is) have tracked down an Ecstasy-importing gang and are going after a big shipment to shut the whole thing down. The Ecstasy is imported by a Cuban, played by a Catalonian; smuggled by peckerwoods (played by actual peckerwoods) and sold in nighclubs owned by a Russian (played by a Swede).

Now, I realize that the Office Of National Drug Control And Making Tobacco And Alcohol Companies Rich By Keeping Out Alternative Intoxicants Policy thinks that Ecstasy Is Bad, but it’s a pretty weak evil drug. Compared to ceroin or cocaine or PCP, it’s pretty benign, and a bunch of well-dressed club-goers (even an overdosing one) using E and having positive social interactions are not exactly as sympathetic as schoolkids getting hooked on pot or blue-collar workers falling victim to crack or even rock stars becoming junkies and living a slothful and filthy existence. Ecstasy forms a pretty weak foundation for the big evil in this movie. But, functionally, it’s nothing but a McGuffin enabling a movie full of shooting and detonations of various items, as which it serves adequately.

So the action all starts in the first five minutes when our heroes infiltrate said peckerwoods moving said Ecstasy in a Klan meeting. There’s a gunfight, and Smith shoots Lawrence in his big bootay. This is the source of much strife between the partners, allowing Bay to insert some conversation between explosions and gunfights, thus keeping the total cost of the movie down while keeping its running time up.

And it is a long, long film — 150 minutes — but it doesn’t seem that long, because the budget is plenty large enough to provide action for what must be about 125 of those minutes. The biggest action sequence takes place when Gabrielle Union, playing Lawrence’s sister and an undercover DEA agent, is laundering the Ecstasy dealers’ money. The Red Lectroids (in a cameo role), for some reason, try to hijack her and her money, resulting in what is certainly one of the best car chases I’ve ever seen. The Lectrods also hijack themselves a car transporter and drive down the freeway, dumping cars off at 70 miles per hour, trying to shake their police pursuers. There follow many good smash-ups, some explosions, and even a boat tumbling across the highway.

Further good action scenes include:

  • A car chase involving a hearse that sheds bodies as it flees
  • A gunfight in a ghetto house involving lots of trick shots through walls and aimed by mirrors
  • A pitched battle with Cuban regulars
  • A Jackie Chan-worthy car chase down a hill and through (literally through!) an apparently highly-explosive barrio
  • A gunfight in a minefiled, culminating in the shooting of a bad guy, who dies, falls on a mine, and whose head is blown several feet into the air

Like the first Bad Boys movie, there’s also plenty of humor. A fairly weak running joke about above-ground pools breaking will nonetheless appeal to the older demographic taking their teenagers to this movie. Twentysomethings will enjoy the long heart-to-heart enjoyed by our heroes that is all, of course, inadvertently a discussion of gay butt sex. Teenagers will dig the gross-out morgue humor.

Girls can enjoy Will Smith looking classy and toned, while men get to gaze at Gabrielle Union, who is a useful upgrade from the original’s Tea Leoni but still a bit of an less prominent sex symbol (what with all she’s in this summer, I confess to a bit of surprise that Eva Mendes wasn’t in this movie too).

So, Bad Boys II is a movie with something for everyone, so long as you like lots of explosions, fast driving, and general continuous action. Fun movie, and a worthy successor to the Lethal Weapon series.