Ride Along 2 is a buddy cop comedy film directed by Tim Story. This time around the ‘Brothers In Law’ are heading to Miami to try and take down a big time criminal.
My issues with the first film are magnified here. It seems as thought the creatives behind this film learnt the wrong lessons from the first film and doubled down on all their mistakes, it is not fun to watch.
Once again Hart’s Ben is funny, though less so, this time around more of his jokes don’t land. There are only so many times they can play up the fact he is a hopeless gamer before it starts to become unfunny. This film does seem to like driving its jokes into the ground, to a point where they just become irritating.
Ice Cube’s James is even more angry this time around because that is a personality right? I thought maybe they would soften him a bit in this film so we could see the man behind the angry front, but hey why worry about characterisation when you just rely on cliches.
Ultimately, the main issue with this film is that nothing is done to further either of the characters if anything this film feels like a retread of the film.
They also put Oliva Munn in this film for some reason, her character is not given much to do. The only reason she seems to be around is to fill the ‘eye candy’ role for the male gaze and for James to have a love interest. She has no agency of her own and does not really advance the story and is not developed in anyway either, once again this feels cheap and shows how reliant the film is on cliches.
Overall, this film feels needless and like a retread of the first that is afraid to break any new ground.
Pros.
A few funny jokes
It is watchable
Cons.
It is painfully average
A lot of the jokes don’t land
It doesn’t seem to know what character development is
Oliva Munn’s character is objectified and underused
1/5
Reviewed by Luke
Another Millennial Reviewer 