Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
This is the first time I’ve ever actually been eagerly awaiting a new film by Michael Bay. That newest trailer, the one with no dialogue whatsoever, is one of the most effective bits of trailer cutting I’ve seen in a long, long time.
All I know is, Beaks is a snob, and Beaks loved this. That’s gotta count for something.
hey harry --
ordell here. i wrote a few weeks ago about dmx's never die alone. well, now i have another review of yet another milestone in african-american cinema -- that's right, BAD BOYS 2.
holy toledo. it should have been called BAD BOYS
as usual with Jerry, untold numbers of screenwriters
crafted this and their touches show in different ways.
the story is credited to Cormac & Marianne Wibberly
(the house hacks of Columbia Pictures -- how this
talentless pair keeps getting movies made is beyond
me: first THE 6th DAY, then I SPY, then the story for
feeble CHARLIE'S ANGELS 2, and now the story for this)
and Ron Shelton. Screenplay credited to Shelton and
Jerry Stahl of PERMANENT MIDNIGHT fame (and his morbid
sensibility is in full force here), and John Lee
Hancock of THE ROOKIE and PERFECT WORLD was also
credited before the WGA arbitration, and god knows how
many others had a hand.
the basic story -- Will and Martin are on the trail of
the biggest Ecstasy smuggling ring in the world, run
out of Miami by a bad-ass drug-lord who smuggles the
drugs and money in coffins and cadavers, using his
mortuary business as a front. Don't remember the name
of the actor who played the baddie, but he's so
over-the-top it's frightening -- makes Al Pacino doing
Scarface look like a paragon of understatement and has
totally '80s hair. The other baddy is the wonderful
Peter Stormare, also even more over-the-top than he
was in MINORITY REPORT and LEBOWSKI combined, as a
Russian mobster in biz with the latino baddy.
Meanwhile, Martin's kid sis, played by Gabrielle
Union, is hiding the truth about her on-the-sly
relationship with Will, as well as the fact that she's
an undercover DEA agent also on the same case.
Ultimately, of course, kid sis gets in too deep and
our bad boys have to rescue her. That's the basic
set-up, and it serves as the clothes hanger for the
craziest f-ing action movie in decades. and I mean
this in the best way.
the formula is almost like kabuki now -- big action setpiece, followed by comic relief, followed by bigger
setpiece, followed by comic relief, etc. the key
emphasis here is on the word BIG. as crazy as the
action is, Bay, for the first time in his life,
grounds it in some sort of reality vis a vis the laws
of physics, his editing obeys the laws of spatial
choreography, and he has taken the right kind of cue
from John Woo here, particularly HARD BOILED. not
just the slo-mo, but contained shootouts, bullet in
the head pov shots, etc.
the big scene everyone will be talking about is the
car chase to end all car chases, involving a ferarri,
a car carrier truck, and hundreds of police cars.
makes the scene in matrix 2 look pussy by comparison.
it's that good. if anything, the movie has a hard
time topping that one, but it sure tries for the next
1 1/2 hours. a shootout in a haitian church is
amazing, another car chase involving an escalade and a
morturary truck (with cadavers sliding out of the back
and hitting windshields) is more gross than thrilling
(probably the stahl infuluence here), there's a
helicopter chase with boats and, finally and most
astonishingly, the last act (should really call it the
7th act, rather than the 3rd, as this movie has 8
million climaxes and is 2 1/2 hours long), involves a
guerrilla raid by Will, Martin and some ex-Navy Seals
into Cuba. You heard me right. Cuba. They do
battle with drug henchmen and the Cuban army (Jerry
gets to get his patriotic rocks off here) and there
ensues an insane chase in a Hummer (sometimes the
movie feels like one big car product placement) to get
to Guantanamo Bay and U.S. territory. But it's great
in a cheesy way. Like I said, ridiculous, but every
penny is on screen and it's pure adrenaline.
and it's SUPER violent, too (thank god). corpses,
decapitations, bullet hits to the head,
disembowelment. amazed it got an R (particularly when
a glimpse of Maria Bello's pubes gets the COOLER an
NC-17), but glad it did, as the gore is Hong Kong
style great and over-the-top. and it's moderately
funny. a few great setpieces with our boys
(particularly when the grill a prospective date of
Martin's daughter), some typical Shelton buddy-cop
quirkiness, and a few gags that ring flat (therapy
jokes, which always must seem funnier to people in
Hollywood than anywhere else).
but those friggin stunts! obviously, the car stuff
is CGI assisted, but the work is flawless. everything
looks TOTALLY real, unlike, say, the rubbery hood
stuff in MATRIX 2, the play-doh Shrek character work
of HULK or the ridiculously bad green screen stuff in
FULL THROTTLE (or ARMAGEDDON for that matter). if I
was 15, I'd see this 5 times, which is more than I can
say for EPISODE 1, EPISODE 2, HULK, SPIDERMAN or
MATRIX 2. ultimately, it has to be seen to be
believed. i don't think there's any way Bruckheimer,
Bay or anyone else can top this as the ultimate bad
rollercoaster ride on steroids buddy cop picture.
this almost plays as a parody/kiss-off of the whole
'80s buddy cop genre -- sort of the BEAT THE DEVIL of
Beverly Hills Cop/Lethal Weapon movies. Joel Silver
must be shitting in his size 48 gaudily embroidered
maxfield pants right now. Jerry has beaten him at
his own game. who knew he had such a sense of humor?
it's even better than ROADHOUSE!!!! Astonishing.
signing out...
ordell
Crazy. It sounds absolutely crazy. Count me in on opening day.
"Moriarty" out.
