by MARK SLUTSKY

Bay is back. Michael Bay, that is, director of some of the biggest, loudest, most senseless movies in Hollywood. After the Pearl Harbor fiasco of a couple years back, where Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer made a concerted, if somewhat embarrassing, attempt at an Oscar movie, the duo have returned to their roots in bikinis and big explosions with Bad Boys 2. A sequel to Bay’s big breakout picture, Bad Boys 2 should’ve been a fun, dumb series of car-chases through Miami; instead it’s a gruelling, at-times-incomprehensible parade of mean-spirited carnage.

Now, most, if not all, action movies are going to involve people dying - that’s what "action" means: physical violence. But Bay seems to relish death like very few other directors. Bad Boys 2 takes a special glee in the destruction of bodies. People are shot in the eye, torn apart by monorails, they have their guts ripped out and drugs stuffed in. Corpses fly out of vans and have their heads crushed by traffic. There’s a sinister gleefulness to all this grotesquerie that’s almost interesting - maybe this is the true face of the summer blockbuster - if it weren’t so disgusting and meaningless.

Meaningless? Pretty much. Really, I’d love to explain the plot of Bad Boys 2, if only I could. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back, of course, as a pair of mismatched cops: Smith is relaxed and smart-alecky, Lawrence is neurotic and complains a lot. This one basic joke is repeated about 7,000 times throughout the movie’s astounding two-and-a-half hour running time. There’s something about a Cuban drug lord who’s trying to, well, I guess he’s trying to be a better drug lord. This guy has got to be the worst movie villain in ages. He has long hair. He wears fancy suits. He snickers. He kills without remorse! He sucks.

Anyway, a whole bunch of stuff happens, seemingly at random. There’s a big chase on a highway that’s sort of diverting, and many things explode in the finale, if you make it that far. It’s not worth it. Save your dignity and your dollars and stay away.

BAD BOYS 2 OPENS THIS FRIDAY, JULY 18

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