I hope there's not already a topic for this because I forgot to look. Anyway, I just got out of it. The good news is, it's a hard-R action move in which stuff gets blowed up real good and real impressively and real frequently. Also, it has two funny guys in it. And the violence is satisfying if you were disappointed by the pussy-footing sense of agression in The Matrix 2 or Terminator 3.
The bad news is that it's two and a half hours freakin' long, and while it never really gets boring, it does have a way of bludgeoning you into having a good time, so that it's fun while it lasts but you sort of have a killer headache afterwards. The movie has all the grace of a hummer smashing through a house, which actually happens multiple times in the movie (among other unwiedly vehicle-building couplings).
So basically, it's a Michael Bay movie. Thankfully, he's eschewed the sentimentality and emotional bombast of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor and replaced it with grisly humor and more action. Predictably, he has yet to open a dictionary and learn the meaning of, much less visibly employ in his direction, subtlety. Not that I was expecting it. Ultimately, this movie is trashy and awful, but I guess I enjoyed it. In the way that you enjoy something after you manage to forget that Bruckheimer and Bay practically have guns to your head forcing you to enjoy it.
A word on the car chase(s)...I think Jerry Bruckheimer was purposely trying to one-up Joel Silver. The Matrix Reloaded car chase was much longer and more involved, and had a clear geographic scope to it (due, of course, to the custom built highway). The ones here, though, are far more visceral, intense, (hard to follow) and crazy, mainly because you get the sense that they were doing a lot of that crap for real. Which they were.
I can't wait for this one. Is it true that there's a gun fight all in one shot?
Yeah, to an extent. You might have seen a bit of it in the first trailer...Will Smith on one side of the wall, the bad guys on the other, and the camera circling around the two rooms. Thanks to some CGI-window panes and clever editing, the single shot lasts (or appears to last) for a good while, but it doesn't last for the whole gunfight. It's a pretty good scene. The whole movie is full of really good scenes, actually. There's just too darn many of them.
Heh, I agree. I came out of it holding my head. It was very entertaining though and a good time had by all. And the trailers were also fantastic. Good to see TCM and Once Upon A Time In Mexico. Hooo am I excited.
You know, I wasn't gonna see it, but now I am. Thanks, Ghostboy! The long runtime is a strength in my mind. I like to get lots of bang for my buck, even if it makes my head hurt. There's lots of 80 minute movies that make my head hurt too.
And seeing as I actually own the Pearl Harbor 4-disc DVD set... :shock: I suppose it was only inevitable that I eventually see the new Bad Boys. Bad Boys. Whatcha gonna do?
Just got back and I don't know how I feel about this film. I was fucking loving it at first then it was like the first few minutes were just replaying over and over. It almost got amusing because Smith and Laurence just kind of ran out of shit to say during the countless car chases and started to repeat themselves. I will say that films like this make me appreciate filmmakers like PTA even more. It is so damn hard to create a film that is great to look at, and that has some sort of emotional resonance. I know this is a buddy cop film, but if you want me to enjoy two and a half hours, there better be something to fucking care about...not just explosions. Interested to hear how everyone else reacts...and man that tcm trailer is nuts...I want to know who cut that because you can almost guarantee that it's going to be ten times better than the actual film.
i'm preparing to be bludgeoned. i am going to go see this and lxg on wednesday to see what i think.
I suprised myself by seeing this. Holy shit, it was violent.
Was anybody else a bit overwhelmed with some of the violence in this? Not that I'm complaining...
aw
I got back from seeing this last night, and I had to do a little write up on it... yes its EXTREMELY VIOLENT... yes its EXTREMELY GORY... it has some of the best car chases i've seen in a long time... they must have destroyed 50 cars in the movie, but to make the movie i bet it was 5 times that many cars... i think this movie has more rounds fired in it than any other movie i've ever seen.
There were a lot of shots that seemed Fincher-esque... the scene with the gunfight through the doors was mentioned... there were many others that were very long... like going through entire passage ways, walls, pipes, whatever... I really enjoyed that because I love these shots.
My only complaint is that it seemed very episodic, and there were like 5 climaxes where they could have ended the movie easily, but decided to do another climax... each climax building more than the previous one. Other than that, I thought it was a great action/adventure movie... don't go into this expecting PDL, and you'll be sure to love it.
Nick
to watch a great gun fight all in one shot check out that 2 minutes and 42 seconds tracking shot in hard boiled--well it's actually 2 shots with a dissolve thrown in there, but you can't tell.
some things i appreciate about this movie...
-bay is one of the few directors who still likes to blow shit up. LOTS OF SHIT. in an age when everyone is concerned about the budget, and being practical. bay is one of the few directors who will still wreck as much stuff as possible. when everyone else is pussing out and using CGI, this is something i can really appreciate.
-this movie was violent. really violent. and come to think of it, i can hardly remember i saw this kind of stuff in the theatre. but in the 80s, it was all about showing the bad guy get one in the head. because it was cool. another thing everyone has been pussing out about. SHOWING US the damage. what happened to movies like robocop? total recall? paul verhoven ultraviolence? actually most action movies in the 80s had that kind of stuff. segall, van damme, stallone, schwarzenegger. this is the stuff i grew up on. and i kind of miss it.
-i think that the movie can be best represented by one of the last scenes of the druglord getting killed. he doesnt JUST get shot in the head. he get shot in the head in slow motion as his body falls on a landmine and blows off the entire top half of his body. in most movies, the bullet would suffice. but not in a bay flick. he's going all out, and giving us our moneys worth. if this sounds cool to you, than this is your movie. the whole production is brimming with this kind of excess.
You are kind of making me want to see it, themodernage02. And I hate you for it.
you should go see it
Quote from: themodernage02-i think that the movie can be best represented by one of the last scenes of the druglord getting killed. he doesnt JUST get shot in the head. he get shot in the head in slow motion as his body falls on a landmine and blows off the entire top half of his body. in most movies, the bullet would suffice. but not in a bay flick. he's going all out, and giving us our moneys worth. if this sounds cool to you, than this is your movie. the whole production is brimming with this kind of excess.
hahah, i liked the first one.. and i guess now i can get over the absence of a hot white chick in this one.
yikes. read ebert's review. (http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-boys18f.html)
The scene with the kid at the door was one of my favorite scenes!
Nick
Quote from: TheVoiceOfNickThe scene with the kid at the door was one of my favorite scenes!
Nick
According to Ebert, then, you need to enroll in some community services. :roll: I think Ebert doesn't quite fit the target demographic for this movie, though... I'm gonna see it this weekend. I'm thoroughly excited.
I just saw Bad Boys 2 this weekend. Wow, really terrific. The total disregard for life and property was wonderful, since I get the sense that every other action movie of late has been reluctant to actually kill people and blow shit up. Even the Matrix: Reloaded was noticably tamer.
The action is brilliant, it doesn't hold back, and it doesn't try to justify shooting people in the face or blowing them in half. In fact, most of the melodrama and cheesiness of the first Bad Boys has been replaced by dark, morbid, insensitive humor in the sequel.
This movie is like a cynical, depressed maniac who refuses to admit they have a problem. "There's nothing wrong with my attitude, I'm a 'realist'..."
I love it. More like this. :-D
Uggghhhh. The back and forth banter and bitching got to be real annoying midway through...and none of it funny. This seemed like most un-Michael Bay like movie he has done. At least with his other films, his "style over substance" approach made for a good looking movie, but here, there was no flashy or visual flair. The freeway chase was very well done and the stunts amazing, but after that at the start, there was nothing else to watch and made for looking at other things, like if Dan Mareno is test driving a car, why does the car already have Florida licence plates?
The quote's gonna be a little off, but:
"Dan Mareno should buy this car-- well not this car. I'm gonna fuck this one up..."
And you didn't laugh out loud? LOL? No? Dammit... :(
I thought it was very funny. Mostly in poor taste. Maybe I was just in the perfect mood for this.
The more I think about it, the more I hate this movie. But yes, that line and many others did make me laugh.
Quote from: GhostboyThe more I think about it, the more I hate this movie. But yes, that line and many others did make me laugh.
I loved it...i mean the plots really had some stupid shit goin on....but i stopped looking at it as anything more than like insanity and ended up loving the hell out of it.
My hate for it is two-sided...the cynic in me likes the movie, because it's so nihilistic and calloused and because it basically just blindsides the audience with a constant barrage of violence, while the gentler side of me hates it for the same reason.
I love seeing things be destroyed, especially when it's not CGI...but Bay does it without any grace. The car chase in The Blues Brothers is still one of my all time favorites, but there was a sort of awe involved when you saw all those cars continuously piling onto each other. Bay never indulges you with a shot that lasts that long.
Quote from: GhostboyI love seeing things be destroyed, especially when it's not CGI...but Bay does it without any grace. The car chase in The Blues Brothers is still one of my all time favorites, but there was a sort of awe involved when you saw all those cars continuously piling onto each other. Bay never indulges you with a shot that lasts that long.
This post reminded me of the excitement I felt watching
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The car stuff is really, really wonderfully done. Especially for a comedy.
Bad Boys 2 doesn't pull any punches. I admire it for that, if nothing else. I totally agree; the plot is absurdly ridiculous. "Oh, that's my sister I've never talked about before who just happens to secretly work for the CIA... and dayum, now we gotta get the army and go to Cuba to save her fine ass." You know, I really wasn't expecting anything better than that...
Maybe they call it 'lowered expectations'... you know? You don't hold the kids on the short bus to the same set of standards.
This was just a fucking great time. Funny, loud, completely exaggerated in its excessive violence & destruction. I dont remeber a recent film that was so proud of how OTT is is! It's overblown and it knows it. A film that laughs in excitement at how ridiculous its action is. I loved its 'destroy everything & everyone' approach. In my opinion, its the most reliable flick for action of the season.
What the hell was Ebert on about? That 'ugly scene' with the young boyfriend was funny as shit! Lawrence cracked the whole theatre up. Some scenes were genuinely hilarious. The 'humping rats' sight gag would make the Farrely's jealous ("They fuck just like us!").
I didn't like it QUITE as much as the first, but damn that was fun. Loved it.
Quote from: oakmanc234This was just a fucking great time. Funny, loud, completely exaggerated in its excessive violence & destruction. I dont remeber a recent film that was so proud of how OTT is is! It's overblown and it knows it. A film that laughs in excitement at how ridiculous its action is. I loved its 'destroy everything & everyone' approach. In my opinion, its the most reliable flick for action of the season.
What the hell was Ebert on about? That 'ugly scene' with the young boyfriend was funny as shit! Lawrence cracked the whole theatre up. Some scenes were genuinely hilarious. The 'humping rats' sight gag would make the Farrely's jealous ("They fuck just like us!").
I didn't like it QUITE as much as the first, but damn that was fun. Loved it.
You feel exactly how I do about it...the only that gets to me are those matrix-esque bullet following effects, but I got over them. I still love that movie.
I've been watching the Conan rerun of Martin Lawrence when he was promoting this.. I saw this the first time it came on, but when he showed the clip of the movie, I watched and then began tuning out.. this time I watched and heard what Conan said afterwards. He observed there was a lot of cool car explosions and that it was an exciting clip, unlike a lot of the other clips people come in and show (he was joking, but you know he wasn't). THEN Lawrence replied, "That was the genius of Michael Bay"
and I just died... I lost it... Lawrence is hilarious. He's a genius when it comes to oxymorons.
Martin Lawrence is like nails on a chalkboard. When I saw he was gonna be on Conan, I turned the channel when he came out. He's probably the only guest I can't tolerate, and that says a lot for some of the other guests Conan has had. He's probably the most obnoxious human on the face of the Earth, and that's considering he lives on the same planet as Gilbert Gottfried. Just thought I'd share.
I can tolerate Lawrence but when Conan asked him what he meant by "dirty" and he hesitated and then replied, "it's dirty diiirttty..." a couple of time... I really felt stupid for watching.