BAD BOYS II (Michael Bay, 2003) 62

Reviewed: July 22nd, 2003

This is a hulking beast of a film, bent on complete and hellish destruction the world over. It's also pretty damn entertaining, clocking in at approximately nine and a half hours but striking the correct balance (just like the cheapie, relatively terse and thus ultimately superior original) between comedy (which is sometimes wonderful here thanks to Bay's ability to let the awesome talents of Smith and Lawrence breath) and action (which is go-for-broke brutal and decently stimulating) and in doing so manages to steer clear of the dreaded Boredom Brigade. There's something reassuring about the reigning American king (and revolutionist, for better or worse) of the action film returning to the scene of his crimes during late summer 2003 and -- in a year when over half the tentpole filmmakers have willfully forgotten that movies can indeed only be two hours (or less!) long -- reminding them how Bigness is done proper. Granted acolyte McG slightly bested Bay this summer with his bubbly and intriguing parody of popular culture, but there's little doubt in my mind McG (at least as we know him) wouldn't even exist if Bay hadn't prefigured his work. Bad Boys II's set pieces are bold, but -- like Mostow in Terminator 3 -- Bay shoots them with a kind of clean concision uncommon to typically incoherence-afflicted action filmmakers. The frames might be appropriately cluttered, but Bay's editing (which used to be held up as the death of cinema) no longer seems especially quick (I don't know if that's because Bay's slowing down or because Bay's older rhythms are now the norm).

What's most notable about Bad Boys II is its pushing of the big budgeted movie's R rating; not the amount of carnage nor the scale (which are obviously vast, but also well managed), per se, so much as the specific avenues of depiction. A part of me admires Bay's refusal to censor his film; maybe this is a test, an experiment in which Bay asks the audience (while grappling with the question himself) if this kind of no-holding-back cataclysm is what they really desire (e.g. corpses being dismantled, falling onto the freeway and run over; people being killed at point blank range just so that their dead body can then be exploded into a million bits, etc.), if -- in a movie landscape where the next action film must always be grander, more thrilling, more elaborate and possessing the latest developments in FX -- this is the logical or even necessary step: maybe there's simply no place else left to turn and the only other option would be a regression or sorts (which is the route Terminator 3 seemed to proceed along). Maybe Bay is wondering if the regression is an important part of the ongoing action filmmaking process, and Bad Boys II is his deconstruction-requesting swan song of sorts (granted that case can be better made for Charlie's Throttle, although Charlie might be an evolution more than a regression). In Bay's decision to steal David O. Russell's brilliantly disturbing CGI bullet-tracking technique (which McG also ripped off in The Truth About Charlie's Angels), this is the first action movie (a term I use to differentiate from, say, war movies) I can remember seeing in God knows how long in which the violence seemed to be genuinely affecting viewers. Deaths aren't cut away from as quickly as they usually are; the impact settles in as blood splattered close-ups are held a second longer than we've become accustomed to (just enough time so it's not suspect). My audience flinched, moaned, cried out and while I'm not entirely certain that's cause for praise, it's gotta at least be preferable to the anesthetization elicited by something as phony and aggressively bland as Pirates of the Caribbean. Admittedly Bay overdoes himself sometimes, veering perilously close to queasy offense (e.g. exposed brains nearly falling outta people's heads), and yet it seems hypocritical to take certain aspects of action movies to task for gratuity; it's all gratuitous -- this is a genre built entirely upon worthlessness and excess, a genre whose success is ultimately gauged by excitement and visceral response (fields where M.B. is adept). Most impressive is that as the blood clears we realize there's a genuinely effective friendship at the core of these "Bad Boy" films, while the risible pretense of something like Hulk or The Matrix Reloaded is thankfully kept absent. Where does Bay go from here?

Return home.

[ Addendum: I'd like to note that Bad Boys II has prompted innumerable critics to write some of most hideous and lazy criticism I've seen all year (I'm sure they had their pieces all typed out before they even set foot in the screening), ranging from Charles Taylor's vicious pan that he seems to claim would be rendered moot if only Bay would shoot on cheaper film stock to James Berardinelli's typically embarrassing comment that anyone who enjoyed the film should seek professional help to Roger "City of God is one of the best films ever made" Ebert's declaration that Bad Boys II is so cruel and so out of touch with audiences everyone involved in the project must perform community service. Bay manages to evoke the most laughably ferocious vehemence imaginable; he is no longer a filmmaker, he is an iconic terrorist to hundreds of American critics who see him (who refuse to see him as anything less than) the Demonic Embodiment of Cinematic Apocalypse.

What's astonishing to me is that what critics will gleefully overlook in Joe Average Action Film is unforgivable sin in Bay-land. Villains in a Bay film are Cuban? WHAT A FUCKING GODDAMN RACIST! (Nevermind that approximately one in every four thousand American action films actually have American villains.) Women are mere plot devices in a Bay film? What a sexist motherfucker! (Nevermind that approximately one in every four thousand American action films have female characters who are more than plot devices.) A gay joke in a Bay film?! God, what a homophobic asshole! (Nevermind that approximately one in every two American films has gay jokes; also nevermind that Bad Boys II seems to at least attempt to address its homoerotic undertones.)

As far as I can tell, only the incisive Manhola Dargis bothers to probe Bad Boys II in any sort of depth. I now wish I'd written a longer piece myself. ]