My grandmother use to say “people who watch movies shouldn’t think”. This is the movie for those people, though I don’t think my grandmother would like this movie.
As a whole, I would have to argue this movie is a success. A common criticism about several golden age Hollywood movies that have retrospectively gained traction is the sexist attitudes towards women and the use of gay innuendos as shorthand for signalling who the bad guys are. Bad Boys II is evidence that society has not moved forward from its sexist and homophobic beliefs since the... well, since forever.
I don't believe Michael Bay set out to tell people you're still sexist and don't actually know what it means to be gay. He did understand who was gonna watch this movie but. People who find a woman's physique more alluring than her personality let alone her intelligence. The same people who also have buried any emotional attachment to other men to avoid being labelled as gay and feminine. People laugh due to a release of tension and a lot of people seem to be tense about manly love...
Movies are a form of escapism. An opportunity to live your deepest desires. None of us could destroy 22 cars and a boat or so freely let a Freudian slip play out in a social circumstance without repercussions or judgement. The audience for Bad Boys II would love to do it in real life but they never will and Michael Bay has let them live that life for two and a half hours.
Apart from the obvious egregious casting restrictions for size 2 women and men with at least an 8 pack. Michael Bay knows how to keep his audience entertained. Exaggerated explosions are so prominent that they could be considered a theme of the movie. In one case the explosions are clearly going off about 10 meters away from the actual car causing destruction. The editing reminded me of the infamous editing job done on Bohemian Rhapsody. Both movies ignore the fundamentals of an actors eyeline for continuity. This often results in jarring cuts as the editor attempts to create something coherent. And, while the editor does put something watchable together I couldn’t help but think that if you study editing the illusion is more likely to be broken by below-par editing. Whether it be the action scenes or the conversational ones it just never seems like 1+1=3. We see guns going off but we’re never clearly given the reaction. Guns going off and the odd explosion is all we’re given. But my god are the explosions fun to watch.
I honestly wish film existed without the objectification of women and men didn’t tremble at the even the nominal mentions of being feminine or empathetic. The idea that Michael Bays films are so ridiculous in their spectacle that they are pure cinema in the vein of the Méliès silent shorts of the early 1900s is hindered by the attempt to appeal to the appeal to masses. A mass that is now out of touch with the social norms and unlike a few films like Vertigo of which is an admittance of sexual desire, Bad Boys II offers no opportunity or reason for a reappraisal almost 20 years later from the people who originally wrote it off.
Also, don't get me started on the talk about how rats have sex, the borderline necrophilia, and the acts of violence the supposed good guys commit.
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What do you think of Bad Boys II?
Bay Boys II is currently on DVD, Blu-Ray and streaming on Stan.
