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Third sequence(s): Gay Humor is (supposed to be) Funny. Padding on to the running time are two scenes that I think are supposed to illustrate the ebb and flow of Burnett’s and Lowery’s relationship, but which range from miscalculated to offensive. In the first one, the partners are accidentally broadcast on closed video at a home electronics store talking about Mike’s unintentional shooting of Marcus in the ass. To the flabbergasted shoppers, it sounds like they are discussing anal sex (tee hee). The camera keeps cutting away to an angry mother covering her children’s ears in horror and later telling the duo they need to “get with Jesus.” Sophomoric humor aside, it all seems to be for the audience’s benefit: laugh at the men expressing their feelings, titter at the homophobic matron…

Or not, as later Mike and Marcus cruelly intimidate, berate, and jokingly threaten to rape the date who has arrived to take out Marcus’ daughter. He is soft-spoken, well mannered, is given almost no dialogue, and has no other scenes prior to or in the wake of these five minutes. As attempts at humor, it is one of the most flagrantly miscalculated I can recall outside of the entirety of Peter Berg’s feature Very Bad Things. Mike and Marcus cross the line over to assholes at this point and there is no redemption forthcoming. It stirs the same level of discomfort in me as the scenes in Blue Thunder and Total Recall did.

Fourth sequence: Check out the Titties on the Dead Woman. In the name of laughs (and plot semantics) corpses are stuffed with drugs, flung from the backs of ambulances and run over, and subjected to having the detectives shove their arms up into their hallowed out chest cavities, in search of said drugs. Time is allowed to leer over a big-breasted blonde, who must have had a really good agent as she rates a credit despite having no dialogue. Or motion.

Fifth sequence: Winning the Bay of Pigs, 40 years later. This is a big dumb action film and they are often filled with violent futile gestures, mass destruction and little to no resemblance to reality. But the finale of Bad Boys II isn’t as cartoony as Schwarzenegger taking on a dictator’s army singlehandedly to rescue his daughter. Mike and Marcus launch an all-out invasion of Cuba to kill Tapia and get Marcus’ kidnapped sister back. The big chase scene is conducted down a steep hill dotted with shanties, presumably all with people inside. There is a single, turn your ear and you miss it line of dialogue to suggest this is okay because these shanties are where drugs are made, hence all the people inside are bad. But that throwaway masks nothing. It is simply representative of a celluloid view where everyone beneath the heroes and villain is simply meat: to be ground up, to be detonated, to be prodded postmortem, to face plant off a parking structure column at 60 mph five stories below on to a car rooftop. I may be repulsed, and considering the lowbrow limits of my tastes, it may be hypocritical of me to react so strongly. At the end, victory has been achieved, but not justice. Dead drug lord innards are strewn all over the Cuba/Gitmo dividing line (and most of the lead characters). A lame “destruction of swimming pool” gag is reprised. We have met the enemy and he is us. My obligation is to call Bad Boys II’s bluff.

Afterthought: To reflect back once more to the last Chapter Two on Tony Scott, I can’t help but consider my thoughts on his handling of actors and letting even the small roles shine. In Bad Boys II, from the stars on down to the naked starlet in the morgue, no one is featured at their best.

Pop on over to Sole Criterion in two weeks time as the Bay lovefest continues with The Rock and/or Armageddon (neither of which I have seen in over a decade) and then come back here in October for a consideration of the question: What happens when R-rated movies tone down for the sequel? Police Academy 2 and Revenge of the Nerds II will be our case studies.

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