Starring: Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Gabrielle Union, Joe Pantoliano
Directed by: Michael Bay

For completely unhindered action and violence, Bad Boys 2 is the film to see this summer. Martin Lawrence and Will Smith play two narcotics (Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowry) detectives following a lead to a big time drug lord. Cheesy melodrama ensues as Mike is romantically involved with Marcus's sister Sydney (Gabrielle Union) who is also and FBI agent looking for the drugs alluded to above.

Surprisingly the story was not that bad. Lack of time travel, virtual reality and the Force lends itself to plausibility and therefore a realistic and almost interesting plot. I didn't once have to think, "Goddamn! This doesn't make ANY sense at all!"

But what makes Bad Boys 2 one of the best movies this summer? Unlike The Matrix Reloaded which had several LONG and forced action scenes held together by a farfetched plot, Bad Boys had many more, short and very well done action sequences and a simple plot. Don't get me wrong, the action scenes in The Matrix were incredible. But the whole movie was essentially 3-4 action scenes interrupted by lots of bad dialogue. I find by varying the action scenes (and not abusing CGI, thanks Michael Bay), Bad Boys 2 was able to hold my interest for 2 hours and 20 minutes! Quite a feat considering my normal attention span. I'm already tired of writing this review...

But I'll continue for the sake of giving mad props to Will Smith and Martin Lawrence who are in my opinion two of the most entertaining Hollywood personalities out there. They make a great team, they have great chemistry together... The whole package! The humor in this movie brings it from a very good action movie to an excellent action movie.

Having characters that are fun to watch in between action scenes really makes a big difference, I noticed. Who would have thought? Though I liked the plot in The Matrix Reloaded, in between action scenes I quickly became annoyed (very, very annoyed) with the humorless characters. I would say this goes for almost all movies this summer (except Pirates of the Carribean). Action is good, but something has to happen in between action scenes. Lawrence and Smith fill those gaps more than adequately with brilliant humor. Joe Pantoliano's few scenes as the irate police captain are also hilarious.

If the main characters are funny or at least somehow interesting to watch, then the story can advance without the viewer wanting to jam flaming pencils in their ears and gouge out their eyes with hot pokers so they won't have to hear the drivel spewed out by vapid characters created by lousy writers! Forgive the disturbing imagery (and the run-on sentence). These violent movies really influence me (as does bad writing).

Speaking of which, some cry-babies out there find the movie irresponsible because the "heroes" do a lot of damage to public property and demolish a shanty town in Cuba. Others complain the movie is too violent and some of the humor is too dark. Hello, Losers! The movie is called >b?Bad Boys 2! Not Good Boys or Sissy Queero Boys! Or Effing Choir Boys (editor: that could be a different movie altogether!)! I didn't shell out money to see a movie called Bad Boys unless I was ready to see two irresponsible psychopaths blow s**t up! Maybe they overdid it a little bit, but can you really have to much gore and violence? If you can, and that's a very big if, this movie accomplishes that.

So if you go and see Bad Boys 2, I promise you'll laugh out loud and I promise you'll see some of the best action of the year. Isn't that worth the price of admission and a few hours?

MastaCSG
Queen

DroopyMcC		Really fun movie! Screw Roger Ebert for saying that the scene with the kid at the door is offensive. What the hell? That's the funniest part of the movie. I admit, it's excessively violent, but hey! I don't care! I don't know about the movie making sense of whatever was written above, but it's a fun flick.
Jack