Bad Boys II (2003)

Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union, Peter Stormare, Joe Pantoliano, Theresa Randle, Jordi Molla, Michael Shannon, Henry Rollins, John Salley, and Dan Marino
Grade: A-

Hate me all you want for it, but I liked Bad Boys II. It’s so much fun, especially if you loved the first one.

Summary

During the opening credits, we see caskets being filled with ecstasy. They are then dropped off at the Amsterdam Harbor.

In Miami, Florida, the boat filled with the caskets are being delivered for $150 million to Cuban drug kingpin Johnny Tapia (Jordi Mollà). At the Gulf of Mexico, the cargo of caskets is let off the boat. They just elude the Coast Guard. Around Stiltsville, five miles off the coast of Miami, they make the payment official. The TNT (Tactical Narcotics Team) leader (Rollins) warns his crew they got a tip that the biggest shipment of ecstasy on record is being shipped tonight. They have a whole crew ready to storm the place, but they have to get the “o-k” from the ground guys first. Those ground guys are Detective Lieutenants Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence). They infiltrate a Ku Klux Klan meeting, and it turns into a shootout where Mike saves Marcus by firing a bullet that hits Marcus on the ass, on the way to hitting the bad guy in the neck.

Sadly, they only find two bags of ecstasy instead of the “biggest shipment on record” directly from Amsterdam.

Back at Johnny Tapia’s place, he wonders how the police found his mules and questions his crew. It forces them to change the shipment schedule.

As Marcus gets airlifted to the hospital, him and Mike talk about their individual therapy sessions and their completely different experiences. Once they get to the hospital, Mike calls his informant Icepick (Treva Etienne) and berates him for promising more for their bust. He gives Icepick twenty-four hours to find the rest of the ecstasy, otherwise he’s coming after him. In the meantime, we see a crazy Miami nightclub where everyone there seems to be on the drug. Alexei (Stormare) is there to oversee the whole thing. Johnny calls Alexei to see what he knows, but Alexei pleads ignorance. He then sees some guy in the club overdosing, so he sends his workers to grab the guy and dump him in an alley. At Marcus’s house, he relaxes in his pool while his sister and DEA Special Agent Sydney Burnett (Union) visits and talks with the kids. Mike comes over and already starts to annoy Marcus, who practices his “woosah” chant he learned in therapy to calm himself down. Mike sees Sydney and comes in to greet her, Marcus’s wife Theresa (Randle), and the kids. Privately, Sydney kisses Mike. Apparently, they’ve been dating since last month when Mike dropped off a witness in New York, where Sydney lives. In the kitchen, Theresa tells Marcus he needs to tell Mike soon about him transferring and how they won’t be partners anymore. Both Mike and Marcus don’t feel like now is the right time to tell each other their secrets. Sydney wants too though.

They all have lunch together, and Sydney brings up Mike’s New York trip enough to make Marcus suspicious but doesn’t reveal anything. They talk about Mike potentially showing Sydney around town, but she excuses herself for some type of meeting. Marcus gets mad at Mike for making fun of his above ground pool in front of the kids, so they go talk by it, and they argue a bit. Marcus plays fetch with his dog for a second, but the dog’s leash gets caught in the structure of the poorly made pool and tears the whole thing down. The water goes everywhere and knocks Marcus into the ocean outside of the parameters of his yard. In the midst of all this, Mike gets a call from Icepick about another drop, so they go to check it out.

At an undisclosed location, an undercover Syndey works with Alexei on a massive deal, as she’s working as the money launderer. Alexei’s partner Josef (Oleg Taktarov) thinks they’re getting screwed on the money deal, so progress is stalled as they work out the details. Right after, a Haitian Zoe Pound gang follows them once they drive to a new spot. Mike and Marcus are staking out the place as well. Eventually, the Zoe Pound move in and shoot one of the agents Sydney is with. A car chase ensues, and once Mike and Marcus see Sydney is involved, they join in.

After a chaotic chase ensues through the streets of Miami, following millions of dollars of damage, the two catch up to Sydney once things cool down. Marcus flips out on Sydney for not saying anything about her working on a five-month case. Once he leaves, Mike cools things down once he sees it’s the first time she had to use her gun. He does admit Marcus had a point though. Even so, the drop happens, and the Russians get the money from her car as planned. Mike and Marcus go back to the department and get reamed by Captain Conrad Howard (Pantoliano) for the car chase because it was all over the news. Trying to calm himself down with the “woosah” method Marcus has been doing, Howard decides to hear them out. Mike admits they got a tip that the Zoe Pound were doing a hit on cash or drugs from a big-time ecstasy dealer, but they got no money or drugs from the chaos. Howard gets even more mad once he finds out the DEA is doing work under his nose without consulting him. Following Mike getting a phone call that the dashboard of his car that Marcus accidentally shot during the chase will cost him $21,000, he tells Howard their plan of attack. Mike figures that since the Zoe Pounders knew exactly when and where to hit the drop, they must know where the cash is. When they find the cash, they’ll find the dealer.

Howard is taking the fight to ecstasy personally, so he sends Mike and Marcus out to do their job and stop these guys.

My Thoughts:

In some franchises, sequels can lose the feel or fail to recreate the magic of the first film. Some sequels try to overdo everything to make it bigger and better, and sometimes it’s too much. Though there’s much more action this time around, actually the most action out of all three films, I don’t think it’s too much for an action movie. Believe me, Michael Bay and his team up the ante on the action sequences A LOT (the car chase sequences were WILD), but considering the fun had in the first film, I enjoyed it just as much a second time around. Bad Boys II may not be as good as the first film, but it’s a very entertaining sequel that along with heart-stopping action, cool shootouts, and great shots of the always scenic Miami setting, the sequel still manages to be genuinely funny too.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back at it again and their constant bickering is just as funny. Even so, Lawrence’s Marcus has grown up a little bit and has realized how detrimental Smith’s Mike is to his lifestyle. Marcus has slowed down a lot since the first film and has started to enjoy being a father and husband even more than before, especially with his daughter growing up. He’s not as reckless as he used to be as a cop. This doesn’t mesh with Mike Lowrey who still has the same attitude he did when he was young, is still in the prime of his life, is still in great shape, and even more reckless than when we saw him in the first film.

As we know, this is when Will Smith was unstoppable at the box office, so it really does coincide with his star persona at the time very well.

Marcus sees Mike is causing him stress and so does everyone else. This is why, despite their closeness, he wants a transfer and a new partner. You may say he’s overreacting and getting a little crazy, but this is a Marcus fresh out of therapy. He has a clear head and is using measures to counteract his ever-persistent anger we saw in the first film. It’s an interesting detail added to the plot, but the bigger one is Mike finally finding a girlfriend, Marcus’s sister Sydney. Along with working in the DEA, this makes things contentious with Mike and Marcus’s already testy relationship because Marcus is already exhausted with Mike’s antics to begin with. If he finds out Mike is dating his sister, knowing how overprotective he is, he may lose it. We see how Mike struggles to tell his best friend the truth because he knows Marcus won’t take the news kindly, but there’s also a level of respect he has for his partner and best friend. He wants to find the right moment in time to tell him, but it’s hard to find that moment when you’re neck deep in a case. The same goes with Marcus because ending his partnership with Mike is life-changing news, considering how long they’ve been partners for. Both elements add a lot of exciting drama in a plot that needs it.

This is because the overarching story with Johnny Tapia is about as basic as it gets. Once again, there’s an evil drug kingpin that needs to be taken out. There’s no surprising us with that. Though they did a good job in making things different by having him ship his drugs in caskets and dead bodies (it’s a great cover), Tapia himself is a one-note character. He’s a lot better than Fouchet from the first film though.

Besides Tapia being known for suing the Miami Police Department for wrongful imprisonment several times over and has won millions from it (the most recent one netting him $9 million), Tapia is the same overtly violent bad guy that you see in most action movies. I did like the scene where he had his guys kill Josef and stuff him in a tortilla bin though, sticking him right next to Alexei. I just wish the character was better written to deserve a cool, evil scene like this. Also, he’s menacing in the generic way you would expect in the first half, but he turns into a rather cartoonish villain in the second half and it’s pretty unexpected. I don’t know whose decision this was, but it came off as inconsistent at best.

Peter Stormare, who plays a Russian more than any non-Russian actor I know, is a surprisingly interesting supporting character as the plot develops. Though he doesn’t necessarily change the outcome of anything, he’s involved in a few key moments that are memorable.

Gabrielle Union takes over the third wheel role that Téa Leoni flourished in, in the first film. It was a good casting choice on paper, but I only felt like she did decent enough to get by. The character was given a lot to do, but I wasn’t feeling the emotion out of her like I felt I should’ve. Plus, she was a little too smug. I actually felt bad for Marcus having to deal with her at times, along with Mike who gives her the benefit of the doubt a little too much. She plays the sister role of “I can do this! I’m a big girl! I don’t need you!” when the two are just giving her sound advice and asking to be told if she’s in danger or not. The fact that she’s never fired a gun before and had to kill several people on her first major mission should’ve given her that big moment where she’s taken aback and realizing how important her job actually is. Smith handles it well, seeing that the moment has affected her, but Union doesn’t use the moment to give the character of Sydney a chance to change emotionally. When she kept on goading Mike into telling Marcus about their relationship, it made me dislike her even more. This was especially true when she forced the issue right before the most pivotal bust of the film, causing the two to yell at each other and throw them off their game. How could you think now is the right time? How are you not taking this job as seriously as they are? Everyone should be focused on the mission! Messing with the two lead detectives and affecting their moods and chemistry can affect their energy, shooting ability, focus, etc.

Has Sydney thought of the repercussions for causing a rift between the two right before the most important scene of the movie? How careless can you be? It’s like she thought she was being playful with Mike but if anything, it just made me like her a lot less.

The Dan Marino cameo was solid though. I guess that makes up for it.

As I mentioned before, this sequel is very funny too. Again, most of it stems from the rapport of Smith and Lawrence, but it never gets old to me. The video store scene (where Marcus admits the bullet wound he got gave him nerve damage and has been affecting his erection), the infiltration of the mortuary, and when they go undercover as pest control were all laugh-inducing. It shows you how well both men are at handling humor just as well as the action sequences and not losing a step in either. Martin Lawrence in particular gets so many funny lines. When he accidentally ingested the ecstasy, it was show-stealing hilarity. He’s not only great at flipping out on people and insulting them too, but he’s also a great cusser, especially in his punchlines. Because of this, we get this classic scene that Roger Ebert hated and named specifically in his “1 Star” review of the film. Ebert was quoted as saying, “Have they so lost touch with human nature that they think audiences will like this scene?”.

Well guess what, we did. It was hilarious.

The shootout at the Zoe Pound house was a great action sequence, with Michael Bay doing some very creative work with the camera, circling both rooms and watching the heroes and villains shoot and yell at each other from both sides of the walls. I loved it. Visually and stylistically, it was very eye-catching and an incredibly impressive way to do what could have been a run-of-the-mill shootout (a compliment that can be said a lot about this movie in terms of the imagery). Continuing with Bay’s penchant for upping the ante, his two overly long car chase sequences were astounding, with one having dead bodies from the mortuary being thrown at our two protagonists in the middle of the street. It was creative, funny, and exciting! How can you not like that? When you add this to the spectacular forty-minute finale where the characters just say “fuck the law” because it’s the only way to save the day, sometimes you have to just appreciate the “movie fun” you’re having. It may not be realistic, but it made for one hell of a moment for Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett to turn it on (accompanied by the classic “hero” shot of the two characters side by side), as we cheer for them every step of the way to stop the evil bastard who had to make it personal.

It’s balls to the wall action, it’s super funny, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are still just as good in their roles, and Michael Bay directs this thing like it’s a car crash with a storyline added to it. It’s a great action/cop movie and if you love the banter of a buddy cop movie, very few do it better than Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. Bad Boys II may be a little too long and the main story might be a little too predictable regarding the villain, but everything else is entertaining enough to make this not only a worthy sequel, but dare I say a great one.

I love the callback to the first film too.

“Now that’s how you supposed to shoot! From now on, that’s how you shoot!”