Cops!

One movie in and I'm ready to just agree with everything everyone has said about Michael Bay. Not out of anger, or because I really hated Bad Boys, but because I can't remember anything about the movie and I watched it two hours ago.

Let's see if I can recount the plot. Will Smith is Mike something, and Martin Lawrence is someone else. Mike and ? are narcotics officers in Miami (I think) and best buds. Every day they get into some wacky predicament that they have to shoot their way out of, because due process is for squares.

Actually, while I'm here, I'd like to comment on a scene that could have been really cool. Why is Mike such a loose-cannon cop who doesn't play by the rules? Because he has a trust fund and, thus, nothing to lose. I'm just joking, the film doesn't make that connection. They just use it as a device to show how dedicated Mike is, but it would have been more interesting if he really WAS an adrenalline junkie who got off on violence and didn't have to play by the rules because if he got fired, whatever. No, that would have been too interesting.

Anyway, one day the Miami (I think) police department has a Mt. Fuji of heroin stolen out of the evidence room and Mike & ? are brought in to get it back. Do they shuffle out of bed, take twelve Asprins and a shot of Jack Daniels, pin their badge to their bathrobe and hop on the city bus? No, they hop into their stylish sports cars and have their clothing robots put on their designer suits, speed on down to the police station where the no-nonsense police chief wags his finger at them for being too stylish and sexually desirable.

Argh, fuck. I keep forgetting what I was talking about. So a bunch of heroin gets stolen. Yawn. There's nothing more boring than a villain who's just trying to make a deal and get paid. There are no fucking stakes. No one gives a shit about some dude selling some heroin, he just wants to be as stylish as the main characters. I sympathized with the guy. He's trying to scrape together a living, and here come the cops with their gold-plated Ferraris and diamond-encrusted handguns to bust a silver bullet in his ass for selling something that shouldn't be illegal in the first place. Not to mention he's characterized as a villain because he's European, clearly having had his world domination plot ignored by James Bond and sulking off to sell some heroin and buy a new Moon Laser.

Shit, what was I talking about? Some guy gets shot, I think he's a cop. Some hookers see it, one of them gets shot, the other gets away. ? has to pretend he's Mike so that the girl will talk to him for some convoluted reason (a simple explanation would have cleared the whole situation up in about fourteen seconds, but then we wouldn't get to see an episode of Family Matters where Carl Winslow shoots forty people). There's some sexual tension between ? and the Hooker Witness, but oh no! ? is married!

So the whole plot makes no sense, is boring as shit and then they drive around shooting stuff and talking jive. Every thing about this film is pre-packaged and boring. Every joke is a joke you've heard before. This is at least half comedy and I didn't crack a smile once. The villain is the same as every Bond villain in the 80's. The score sounds like ever score from the 1980's. Even the formula was a joke by then. Maybe it's because my heart is a little black hole of despair, but I derived next to no pleasure from watching this film. It's a thin, dated retread of things we've seen a million times before, and it belongs on cable TV, not on a DVD.

3/10