Bad Boys II (2003)*

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back for Michael Bay's version of a buddy cop movie. Directed by Michael Bay.

Michael Bay gets a lot of crap (usually deservedly). But I have to admit a certain admiration of his style - he really does have a specific style in his films, even if I find some of them to be terrible. This movie, more than any other, seems to be a shining example of his aesthetic, along with a good summation of late 90s/early 2000 summer action popcorn flicks. It's a massive opus, weighing in at 2 and a half hours, and where any other director would be okay wrapping up the buddy cop movie aspect at the two hour mark, Bay decides he wants to shift gears suddenly to a military invasion movie for the last half hour. It's improbable, but damn does he do a good job of filming it and making it look cool. I think that's Bay's one real focus when filming; not, does it make sense, but does it look cool.

Truffault once made a comment that there could never be an effective anti-war movie because all war movies, regardless of their message, make war look cool. Bay definitely takes this to heart, as his movies function a lot like Tom Clancy novels: military hardware porn. Furthermore, he seems unable to shoot any scene without trying to make it look "cool" - his camera is constantly in motion, always moving, jittering or swirling around character, regardless of what they're doing.