Bad Boys II

Bad Boys II? - well now, what do we have here? Old friends in visually perfectly rendered action, a lot of excellent, good and awkward jokes, some family hijinks, an unnecessarily overlong runtime (would have been great if they cut 25 minutes), a delicious highway chase, a passage set in a morgue that made me laugh to tears, a perfect ending in Cuba ("Plan C" is a ride so unreal that it's almost impossible)... Peter Stormare appears in a supporting role (Bay, why on earth didn't you give him more space?), Jordi Molla, the villain, may not be Karya from the first film, but he is charismatic and swinish to the point of being over-the-top. And then there are thousands of other decidedly unnecessary things that make Bad Boys II feel like it’s full of useless stuffing. Bottom line - three stars is just right. There will only ever be one original Bad Boys. And the absence of music (the main theme) from the first film was also disappointing. (19/07/2010)

Very weak for Michael Bay’s standards, with tons of awkward dialogues that hinder an otherwise decently started storyline. The director covers up all the holes in the script with what he does best, breathtaking action. But even that has its flaws. The shootout at the intersection is practically a weaker copy of Mann's shootout outside the bank in Heat, with the same camera positions, the same shots, etc. Bay, of course, cuts much more disproportionately and the camera filters reduce the dose of reality to a minimum, but that's not the point here. Martin Lawrence is traditionally awkward, but we're already used to that. Annoyingly American crap. Movies like this won't make a great name for the current Hollywood film industry... (26/01/2006)

With the second Bad Boys, Michael Bay returned to where he belongs. After all, action-packed, wisecracking relax movies are what he does best. And when he returned, he took two Miami cops from the narcotics unit, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence). Too bad that the screenplay gets lost in a sea of flawless action, interspersed with wisecracks from Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but nothing’s ever perfect. Bay makes up for this with crazy scenes in the morgue or bodies falling out of cars (I hope you won’t think I’m crazy when I admit that I almost died laughing in the movie theater). I think I wouldn’t mind if we were treated to a part three that’s at least similarly good. (24/11/2006)

It's just a sequel. Bay wants to be even more spectacular, but he's basically just repeating himself. There are even more slow-motion shots, and even more technique, and it almost forgets about the main thing - camaraderie. But the lead duo thankfully saves the day and still has some bright and funny moments to win you over. (28/04/2017)

An almost abysmal difference from the entertaining and brisk first one. The characters of Lawrence and Smith may still have the same potential, but it’s hopelessly drowned in 150 minutes of repetitive, foul-mouthed dialogue that becomes irrevocably boring after a short while. Michael Bay seems to have gained a very high opinion of his work after the success of The Rock, and instead of continuing to make exclusively action-packed popcorn movies for the entertainment of the audience, he started betting everything on profit. Perhaps it’s paying off for him, but I'm not going to forgive him. 50% (09/06/2012)