Bad Boys II DVD Review (Will Smith) Empire Movies

BAD BOYS II DVD REVIEW

Bad Boys II
(Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment)

The Movie

The Extras

Reviewed by

7/10

6.5/10

Brendan

Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) are two narcotics officers who lead a drug task force that is trying to bust the largest ecstasy ring in Miami and quite possibly North America. The kingpin of the ring, Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla) is packing up his millions in dirty money and heading to Cuba and Burnett and Lowrey must stop him before he flies the coop.

That is the basic premise of the movie Bad Boys II, which is now available on a 2-disc DVD set in your friendly neighborhood video store and right here on EmpireMovies.com. The first disc features the movie and eight movie trailers (Bad Boys, Bad Boys II, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Radio, SWAT, Spider-Man (animated), The Missing and Underworld).

So how was the movie, you may ask? Well, the first words that come to mind is fucking violent. It is quite obvious that director Michael Bay was trying to push the envelope when it comes to violence in movies and if that is what he was trying to do, he did a damn fine job. This movie has a bit of everything - slow motion bullets killing bad guys, dead bodies getting run over by cars, high-speed car chases with lots of explosions, million dollar mansions being destroyed, shanty towns being run to the ground - pretty much anything and everything you would expect from a Michael Bay movie and maybe even a bit more (the dead body scenes were a bit more than anyone should expect). Overall, I would have to say Bad Boys II is a bit above average for an action film. There's plenty of action, a bit of comedy and even a pathetic attempt at romance. Jordi Molla does quite a good job as Johnny Tapia. He plays the slimy drug dealer to a tee. The movie is loud and there's plenty of bad music but the DVD certainly looks good and sounds clear. There are lots of movies that we often hear to "check your brain in at the door" and you will enjoy it. If any movie defines the "check your brain in at the door" genre, it is Bad Boys II. It is pretty much one of those movies that you just sit back and enjoy the destruction of humanity and life. Just be prepared to sit for a long time because this movie is close to 2 1/2 hours long. It's a long one people.

The second disc is full of extras. First, we have seven deleted scenes, five which more or less feature comedy bits with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, and a couple of scenes with Johnny Tapia. The "Fake Funeral" scene is fairly interesting but not a whole lot else going on here. These scenes were all deleted for good reason.

Next, there are two featurettes, one on some on the stunts (9 1/2 minutes) performed in the movie (car chases, blowing up the mansion and destroying the shanty town) and the other, an 18 1/2 minute featurette on the visual effects used in the movie (car chases, Martin Lawrence gets shot in the ass and the slow motion bullet shots). Both featurettes are decent. They go into great detail and there is some good behind-the-scenes footage, including watching Michael Bay yell and swear at people on the set (including him berating Martin Lawrence scratching the $300,00 Ferrari). There are interviews with the stunt coordinators and the visual effects people and the featurettes really show how much effort and how dangerous it was to make Bad Boys II such a violent movie.

Next up is the music video La-La-La by Jay-Z. I won't comment on this brutal piece of shit. Did I say that out loud?

Next on disc two are some sequence breakdowns. There are six sequences (MacArthur Causeway, Ice Van Chase, Monorail Fight, 5 Man Ratchet, Tapia's Mansion and Shanty Town) where we get to view the sequence from the movie, view on the set footage for the scene, view storyboards for the scene and read the script for the scene. Once again, I enjoyed the "on the set" footage even though some of it seemed a bit repetitive from some of the other extras on the DVD (ie. the car chases, mansion being destroyed and the shanty town getting the shit kicked out of it). There was some interesting behind the scenes footage and once again, we get to see Michael Bay yelling and swearing at people. The storyboards and the scripts didn't interest me too much, but I'm sure there will be some people out there who enjoy that stuff.

Finally, there is a section called production diaries, where we get to see some interesting behind-the-scenes footage and comments on the scenes from various people involved in making this film. There are 19 scenes that are broken down, so there is a lot of stuff here to go through and once again, some of it is repetitive, but it is still another interesting extra. At least this time, in the night club scene, we get to see some really nice breasts, which I don't remember seeing in the movie. There was also some interesting commentaries, anecdotes and strategies discussed in the production diaries. Listening to them discuss how they filmed the "First Date" scene was a funny one that comes to mind.

The one thing I got out of all these extras on disc two was the time, money and effort that goes into making a movie like Bad Boys II. It really is unbelievable. And even though Michael Bay comes off as a bit of a prick in my mind from what I saw on this DVD, the guy seems to know what he is doing and seems like a stickler for detail, which really is not a bad thing. He really seemed to have put everything he had into this movie while probably rubbing some people the wrong way at the same time.

Overall, I have this to say about the Bad Boys II DVD - the movie is a mindless piece of action and violence and is probably not a movie for everyone but if you like guns, chaos, explosions and a few feeble attempts at comedy, this movie is right up your ally. I have to admit that despite its painful 2 1/2 hour running time, I enjoyed Bad Boys II. Maybe not as much as when I first saw it in the theatre, but I still liked it. And I have to thank the lord there was no commentary for this movie on the DVD because I might not have enjoyed it had I had to watch it again with the commentary. The second disc has plenty of extra footage, commentaries, explanations and the like to keep anyone interested in the film-making process satisfied. Even though I thought some of the extra footage was repetitive (I think they explained the car chase, mansion explosion and shanty town chase three times each) and even though I felt that Michael Bay came off as a bit of a prick, I still thought the extras were more than adequate for the movie. The DVD is not the best or the most interesting I have ever seen but it is decent. It would be a good Christmas gift for fans of action, violence, blood, guts and bad music.

Features
Deleted Scenes, Production Diaries, Sequence Breakdowns, Stunts and Visual Effects Featurettes, Jay Z “La-La-La” Music Video, Trailers

Video
Widescreen (2.40:1) Enhanced for 16x9 Televisions

Audio
English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles
English, French, Closed Captioned

Release Date
December 9, 2003

Rating
18A

Length
147 mins.

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