Bad Boys II
Yes, the bad boys are back. Martin Lawrence and Will Smith reprise their roles as Miami detectives, trying to stop the latest in a line of drug smugglers. This newest one involves the son of a funeral home owner, who's using the coffins and corpses to ship money and cocaine back and forth between Miami and Cuba. Of course, buddy cop movies wouldn't be called as such without internal conflict. Marcus's sister, Syd (Gabrielle Union), is secretly dating Mike (Smith) and hasn't told Marcus (Lawrence) yet. Marcus is tired of Mike's actions and is threatening to transfer to a different department. The captain (Joe Pantoliano) is having a fit with both of them and is threatening to have their badges. And on it goes...

The principal complaint is that it's too long, which it is. The 20-minute ending seems to only show off that they got to blow up a really nice house. The car chase in the middle of the film is never ending. The humvee crashes through one too many shacks going down the hill. But in a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay (who makes a cameo in the film), you have to expect action, action, action. And action is what you receive. The individual scenes are thrilling to watch. But watching basically the same thing about 10 times in 150 minutes is very tiring to watch. It doesn't help to be grossed out by the decapitated corpses rolling down the streets or watching the same closeup shots of guns and the strained looks on their faces as they're shooting. While the film piles on the action, it also tries to be funny and while it is at times, its topics are severely limited, from homophobia to rats and all those dead people. As a result, what you have is a tired movie at its supposed peak of creativity. 2 stars