OK, let me make this point clear straight off, I don't want any confusion arising from the rest of the review clouding what is an otherwise concise and understandable line of reasoning. Right, here goes... Martin Lawrence... is not funny. He's not. It's not like I just don't get his jokes, or his 'urban' humour, it's that he's not funny. He has no comic timing, his delivery is appalling, as is his acting. He manages to make even cast iron, solid, easy-to-get-a-laugh slapstick dull and uninspiring. If I was to pick one man in the world who I could honestly say has no chance of making one damn person laugh, I'd choose Martin.
Martin Lawrence made $20 million for this movie. Moving on swiftly to the actual review though, Bad Boys 2 ain't half bad. Sure, it's just a carbon copy of the first film with Smith and Lawrence's Miami PD Narcotics officers going after a major drugs supplier, and managing to balls up almost constantly throughout. This is tailor-made stuff for both the leads and the director. At times I wouldn't put Michael Bay in charge of my laundry, but when it comes to organising utterly brainless nonsense he's first class. The man can do an explosion, the man can orchestrate a gunfight.
So, all this allows for many a car chase and pitched battle as officers Lowrey and Burnett destroy half of Miami whilst on the trail of some particularly nasty ecstacy. Or I least I think that's what was happening, the film wasn't very clear on most of the plot points. At first we see the ecstacy come in and get distributed to various sections of the Florida underworld. Smith and Lawrence bungle and bring in only a small quantity of the drug, but somehow, using what I can only describe as a magical bridge between the gaping holes in said plot, manage to immediately find out who the supplier is and how to bring him down. After a few more cock-ups naturally.
At times the film is little more than a vehicle for using every single stereotype in the book. The retarded, ape-like KKK members, the dishevelled and extremely violent Haitian gang members (what were they doing in the film anyway? They didn't seem to have a point), the drug smuggling greasy Cubans, and of course our street-smart black detectives, their put-upon Latino colleagues and their angry white boss. As a study into the social structure of America, it doesn't go far wrong. |
