If you’re really stuck, you might consider tuning back in for the second hour. After a completely hopeless “plot exposition” featuring two black cops chasing ecstasy dealers, the dark humor kicks in, which is fitting for the mood set by the first hour. Just imagine the dialogue:
– Did you volunteer?
– Not yet.
– Why not?
– What’s the deal?
– Nothing.
– I’m seeing your sister.
– What did you say?
– No, I didn’t volunteer.
– No, you said something else.
– Clean your ears.
– What’s wrong with my ears, you jerk?
– Are you happy with your pool?
– Cost me three and a half grand, no problem.
– You’re an idiot.
– You’re the idiot.
This could go on forever, and it’s impossible to tell who’s more inspired by the script from Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Mariann and Cormac Wibberley – the short, chubby black Martin Lawrence or the tall, skinny, also black Will Smith. The guys clearly believe they’re earning their paychecks just by showing up on set and uttering such nonsense. And director Michael Bay, clearly obsessed with epic scale and big budgets (“Pearl Harbor”), adds to the confidence. He manages to spend a dizzying amount of money on completely flat scenes, like when a dog bites one of the cop’s inflatable pool. To emphasize the importance of the pool bite, he has police helicopters circling New York skyscrapers. Imagine how much it cost to hire those helicopters, pilots, lift them up, and film panoramically from another aircraft, paying for the New York airspace as well. Crazy.
The Second Hour Redemption
Nevertheless, the second hour has its merits. One of the four writers must have hated what they were writing so much that they convinced the others, and they started openly torturing the characters. Cops Lawrence and Smith are thrown into a situation where a drug lord (Jordi Mollà) transports ecstasy in the stomachs of corpses from morgues, which he also happens to monopolize. The writers’ imaginations run wild – anything goes. There’s a chase after a hearse, whose back door, of course, opens, and corpses fall out onto the road, and innocent drivers run them over – heads, heads, and a little head rolls, rolls… There’s digging in the guts of corpses, sorted on gurneys, and even a rather erotic episode on one of the gurneys, where Martin Lawrence hides from the chase and finds himself next to a busty young deceased woman. Suddenly, the dialogue comes alive, although it doesn’t become any more digestible. And when everything has been sucked out of the corpses, the dark humor shifts to Cuba. Even the writers apparently have no way to return to the dialogues described earlier.
Explosive Finale
In general, it ends energetically: Smith, Lawrence, his aforementioned trampy sister, and the drug lord end up in a minefield near Guantanamo. And when the drug lord explodes in the sands of no man’s land in front of the military base, we are shown in detail and sweetly how the upper part of his torso separated from the lower part and where it flew. Michael Bay films everything as conscientiously as the surrender of Japan on the aircraft carrier “Midway” in September 1945. As a result, it’s clear why you should watch “Bad Boys II.”
A Revolutionary Situation
The film perfectly illustrates the three signs of a revolutionary situation clearly developing in Hollywood, as formulated by V.I. Lenin: “Tons of money, the upper classes can’t, and the lower classes don’t want to.” A storm, a storm, a storm is coming soon.