Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Beaks. The guy who gave me Wong Kar Wei’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE on DVD the first time we hung out. The guy who I called to geek out about THE ADVENTURES OF ANTOINE DOINEL’s release on DVD this week. That Mr. Beaks. The same one you often accuse of having swallowed a thesaurus.
That’s the Mr. Beaks who sent me the following review. And, no, I can’t believe it, either:
BAD BOYS II (d. Michael Bay, w. John Lee Hancock, Ron Shelton, Jerry Stahl (!), Cormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley)
I have this sneaking suspicion that making BAD BOYS II was not exactly where Michael Bay wanted to be after PEARL HARBOR, but at some point, as Harry Callahan once said, “A man’s got to know his limitations”. That last movie was a technically immaculate pretender to the prestige film throne that got kneecapped by its misguided ambition to be about something more than empty spectacle. I remember watching Bay, early in the process, giddily showing off an f/x test of what would become the picture’s money shot: a Slim Pickens-eye view of a lone bomb plummeting from the heavens into the prone center of the Tennessee. Bay’s gift for capturing the adrenaline rush of imminent disaster, and plunging the audience nose first into it, seemed even then a sure preoccupation that would sink the film faster than that doomed battleship if the script weren’t up to the level of, say, PATTON. That it was scarcely better than PLATOON LEADER only compounded its failure. It seems cruel to suggest Bay was out of his depth, but he certainly wasn’t a resourceful enough filmmaker to compensate for its massive shortcomings; ergo, as a tonic for this critical and financial disappointment, what he needed most was a return to kind of big, mindless blockbuster on which he made his name. No matter how ignominious a return to such material might seem, he needed another BAD BOYS.
But going back to that long neglected well carried with it its own peculiar obstacles. Made for a paltry $23 million, but suggesting a production value at least twice that amount, BAD BOYS was a watershed film even though no one really recognized it at the time. The second picture in a cautious comeback attempt by the once-untouchable producing team of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruchkheimer (following THE REF), and the first one to score with moviegoers, BAD BOYS reestablished the Simpson/Bruckheimer aesthetic with a hyperkinetic fury that seemed like overkill at the time. What critics were responding to (mostly negatively), was the high-gloss, multi-camera commercial filmmaking style of the picture’s tyro director that sought to dazzle the viewer with blissful disorientation. It didn’t matter that the story wasn’t terribly plausible, or that, half the time, the action was mostly incomprehensible; Bay’s work had a certain ferocity that played by its own fantastic rules. Here was the creation of a universe of glorious excess finding a perfect home in the garish neon confines of Miami, and made engaging by the rambunctious company of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, both of whom improvised their dialogue to cover up the script’s lame pedigree (it was originally intended as a vehicle for Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz).
With the sequel, however, Bay is not only lacking the element of surprise, he’s stuck with the unenviable task of delivering a film that dwarfs its predecessor in terms of scope, and cost-to-onscreen-spectacle ratio. This is no mean feat, considering that the budget reportedly ballooned to as high as $160 million. That’s an awful lot of dough for a buddy cop flick. As the saying goes, the money had better be on the screen.
Though it remains to be seen whether or not Sony can recoup on this precarious investment, they will never, *ever* be able to complain that they didn’t get their money’s worth. BAD BOYS II is the ultimate achievement in empty spectacle; an unabashedly brainless thrill ride that cleverly announces its intentions with an opening credit montage of Ecstasy tablets rolling off an assembly line. This is a summer cinematic narcotic refreshingly bereft of pretension and aimed directly at the pleasure center; a perfect complement to the deadly serious philosophizing of THE MATRIX franchise that focuses solely on sensory overload, not stopping until it collapses in exhaustion at the finish line with a brilliantly improbable finale that ups the ante just as the film seems to be wrapping up. At nearly two-and-a-half hours, BAD BOYS II leaves it all out on the court.
The story, such as it is, centers on our heroes’ – Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) – attempts to squash a thriving ecstasy ring run by Cuban drug lord Johnny Tapia (Jordi Mollá), who receives grudging distribution assistance from a pair of Russian Mafioso, played by Peter Stomare and Oleg Taktarov. The film kicks off with Lowrey and Burnett busting up a Klan rally staged as subterfuge for a major ecstasy delivery. Of course, it turns into a complete disaster where lots of stuff blows up in ably-lensed fashion, capped off by Lowrey inadvertently shooting Burnett in the ass while trying to save his life. This sends the irate, humiliated Burnett into therapy where he’s taught to cope with his anger issues via the kind of silly mantra that’s out of vogue everywhere save for Hollywood films looking for an easy laugh. Ultimately, Burnett feels that the best way to reduce unwanted stress in his life is to put in for reassignment away from Lowrey, who has a knack for shooting the pair into trouble. But until his request is granted, he’s stuck with his reckless partner as they futilely chase down a major ecstasy seizure that Lowrey hopes will get them out of the doghouse with their irritable captain (Joe Pantoliano in full stuttering exasperation mode). Marcus’s angst also gets an added boost when he finds out Mike is romancing his little sister (Gabrielle Union), an undercover DEA agent as equally bent on impressing her brother as upsetting him.
Pretty routine stuff, but for Bay, the plot is little more than window dressing, the merest of formalities. What matters is the mayhem, and it’s here where the ballsy bastard has gone above and beyond. Whereas the first film was a good natured buddy comedy, Bay has turned the sequel into a liberating amoral playground where every nearly every gruesome death is a sick punch line. It’s BAD BOYS II: VICE CITY. Witness, for example, the mindblowing high speed car chase/firefight (he’s certainly his father’s son) on a busy Miami freeway where dreadlocked gang members, having commandeered a car carrying semi truck, unload their vehicular cargo while trying to avoid apprehension. As with any typical Bay film, it’s covered from seemingly hundreds of angles, the better to appreciate the impressive stunt work. It hardly seems to matter that, in several shots, there are cameras blatantly in view. By the time you notice them, the film has become a kind of Brechtian exercise in cinematic demolition. Who cares if, in the context of the “story”, innocent people might be getting killed due to our heroes’ negligence? Bay has no time for this nonsense; “Compassion is for pussies,” he appears to be saying, “Now, watch how I blow up this boat.”
As jaw-dropping as that freeway chase is, Bay manages to top it at least twice before finally bringing the film to a close with a tense Mexican standoff at Guantanamo Bay. And though they’ve cut back on the improvisation from the first movie, there are still opportunities for his stars to loosen up and fool around. The prime beneficiary of this is, of course, Lawrence, who reminds us what an inspired comedian he can be when not riffing in the bankrupt vacuum of junk like BLACK KNIGHT or NATIONAL SECURITY. I loved his mock-surprise when finding it tough going interrogating a couple of dead bad guys, as well as his indignant chiding of Will Smith as he casually examines the corpse of a chesty young woman. Sure, it’s not high comedy, but it *is* a nice return to form. As for Big Will, what do you expect? He’s at his casually charming best, resisting the temptation to coast and turning in a respectable movie star turn.
But the real star of this film is Michael Bay, who I hope never strays again from this kind of event filmmaking. Unlike PEARL HARBOR, this is the kind of film where his predilection for obscene excess can override a deficient script, even if it’s toiled on by half of the WGA. I’ve been very tough on Bay in the past (I think I’ve called him every euphemism for “Satan” that exists in the English language), but, for the first time since BAD BOYS, I find myself appreciative of his respect for the audience. If the studio is going to throw all this money at him, he’s going to spend it trying to find exciting and inventive new ways, preposterousness be damned, to thrill the faithful handing over their $10. In doing so, he’s made the most deliriously over-the-top action film of all time. *This* is the gold standard: the perfect summer film. I can’t wait to see it again.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
Go figure. Michael Bay... Jerry Bruckheimer... I hope you crazy bastards really did what Beaks says you did. I’m in the mood for a lot of mayhem this summer, and if you’re playing to your strengths, then this may turn out to be insane amounts of fun. And, y’know... I sure do like the trailers...
"Moriarty" out.
