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The first film’s “hook” was that, for completely arbitrary reasons, Smith’s character had to pretend to be Lawrence’s character and vice/versa. No wackiness ensured because of this. Here, Detective Mike Lowery (Smith) has been carrying on a love affair with his partner’s sister (unbeknownst to him an undercover DEA agent) and they can’t tell the partner because he’ll go all Scarface or something something. Even with all these scribes, the film is barely able to string together a coherent through-line as to the progression of the case (there may be less detecting done here than in any other Hollywood assembly line buddy comedy). If I am not mistaken, this is also the first film ever where the action is set in motion by the drug lord’s decision to move his millions of dollars of illicit cash out of the basement of his moldering mansion/funeral home because an outbreak of rats are eating through the money.

As foul-mouthed, violent and vulgar as it is, Bad Boys II is exceptionally, deeply conservative and jingoistic, committed to such a narrow-minded, domestic-slanted worldview, it floors me that this played as well as it did overseas. Coming two years after 9/11 and two months after President George W. Bush’s now-infamous appearance on an aircraft carrier to declare “victory” in Iraq, Bad Boys II is the Mission Accomplished of blow ‘em up action films. It argues for decisive unilateral action - facts, codes of conduct, and discretion be damned.

Bad Boys II gives us a hissable and fey, though not very involving villain (Johnny Tapia, poorly embodied by Jordi Molla) pursued through every illegal method necessary by perhaps two of the most unlikable lead characters ever to be given a franchise. Smith and Lawrence both play the same exact notes of bitter cynicism, castrated male machismo, and barely tethered psychotic rage, resulting in less of a comic duet between two talented actors (who were reportedly given significant leeway with improv) and more like sullen monologues that happen to overlap. With the previous paragraphs in mind, here is the condensed version of Bad Boys II, with five key sequences that sum up the extraneous 120 odd minutes surrounding them:

First sequence (two parts, spread out over the first 15 minutes): Ecstatical Hell. It was heroin in the first film and E here, the better to feature an agonizingly unfunny sequence late in the action where Detective Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) accidentally ingests two tabs and morphs into an unfunny impression of a black man on ecstasy. The film opens on a literal “camera wipe” as a thick coat of ecstasy powder is cleared off the lens by a squeegee. From there fast cuts and subtitles like “Amsterdam” and “Miami, FL” track the production, packaging and distribution of the drug until it makes its way into a night club owned by Russian mobster Alexei (Peter Stormare, ill-used and underutilized). Bay envisions this club as a blue-filtered, blacklit, 160 bmp-scored vision of hell with sprinkler systems misting the clientele like so much produce in the grocery store, wet t-shirted women tonguing E pills towards one another, and an overdose that winds up with the dude being tossed out back to die in a garbage-strewn alley.

Second sequence (26 minutes in, lasting over 10 minutes): Neverending Chase Story. What would pass for the climax in most films is only the first of three extended chase scenes detailing the fallout from a drug deal gone bad, involving Burnett’s undercover DEA sister, and which eventually entails cars being dropped from a transport vehicle, flipping over and causing as much mayhem as the opening scene in Final Destination 2. As spectacles of destruction go, this stretch is admittedly exhilarating, building to the moment when Lowery executes a 420 degree turn in his vehicle, decelerates from full tilt boogie to complete stop, whips out his sub-machine gun (?!), wastes a few drug henchmen, and offers a subpar quip. Don’t stop to think about the billions of dollars of destruction to downtown Miami.

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