BEFORE: May's almost over, so I'm just taking it easy today, sleeping in because June's going to be very busy, it's festival month at the theater, so I don't have a LOT of shifts scheduled, but the ones I have are all 10 or 12 hours long, so it's going to be a marathon. At my other job, my boss is constantly running out of money and coming up with more and more desperate attempts to make money and pay his bills, but nothing seems to be working. Part of me wishes he'd just retire, which would solve a few problems for me but probably create a few others, too. I've been job-hunting for maybe two years now and been close a couple of times, but nothing's come together for me on that front, so I'm kind of stuck until I can make some kind of big move, or I just have to quit and lay low for a while, but that doesn't feel right to me either.
Kevin Hart carries over again from "Ride Along", and now we have a tie.
THE PLOT: As his wedding day approaches, Ben heads to Miami with his soon-to-be brother-in-law James to bring down a drug dealer who's supplying the dealers of Atlanta with product.
AFTER: Nothing succeeds like success, I suppose - and if you can spend $40 million making a movie that brings in $125 million, of course you should keep doing that. But notice that they announced a third film in the "Ride Along" franchise back in 2016, and so far it has not been made. Sure, there was a pandemic and everything, but still, if it were really necessary you'd think it would have happened by now. The "Bad Boys" franchise has a new film coming out, and that's the second sequel to the original two movies, so they're kind of in overtime there. Now i bet someone was wishing they'd saved "Bad Boys for Life" for the fourth film so there could be a prominent number FOUR on the poster. "Ride or Die", what does that even mean? Anyway tonight's film was almost called "Ride Along: Ride 2gether" but cooler heads eventually prevailed.
A lot of stuff gets thrown at us in this film, and sure, it would be nice if all made sense, but that's not nearly as important as getting Ice Cube to act tough and Kevin Hart to be loud and crazy. Yeah, those seem to be the primary goals - but also rookie cop Ben Barber is getting married, and clashing with the wedding planner, so it makes sense (?) for his future brother-in-law James to take him to Miami for an undercover operation. I'm just kidding, it makes no sense at all for Atlanta cops to track down a drug dealer / arms dealer in Miami, because they're way out of their jurisdiction. Police can't just go to another city and start shooting people, we'd have chaos all over this country if that were allowed, so I'm pretty sure it's not.
Sure, we have the internet now and illegal things are brought into ports every day, I suppose, and then people load guns or drugs onto trucks and drive them wherever, but we're a nation of laws, and the police have to follow the laws and the rules of engagement, and if there's interstate trafficking going on, isn't that what we have federal agents for? But no, why should a screenwriter learn how police work really functions, because that would just get in the way of a situation where Kevin Hart can act wild and crazy. It's about priorities, people.
Also, this is somehow even more confusing than the first "Ride Along" film, but the tradition continues of having a villain who's somehow into both drugs and guns and works completely in the shadows, the difference here is that he's masquerading as a normal Miami millionaire, and he's buying up politicians and port commissioners to make everything go smoothly. Only he forgot about the hacker he used to, umm, do what, exactly? This is where the story falls apart, because it's really unclear what the hacker does for the drug kingpin, and why he turns against his boss after a much-too-long foot chase through Miami's affluent suburban backyards.
Ken Jeong is fine, but there's a few too many people from "The Masked Singer" in this film, with Jeong, Sherri Shepherd and Kevin Hart, who made a completely ridiculous appearance on one of this season's early shows, allegedly just to "prank" Nick Cannon, only that's not how the show works. Clearly Kevin Hart wanted to be on the show, but also wanted to guarantee that he wouldn't have to sing for more than one episode.
Really, this film is proof that you just can't have it both ways, you can't make an action/crime film that the audience can take seriously if you also want to have Kevin Hart falling out of a boat and being dragged behind it for comic effect. That just CAN'T be in the same movie.
NITPICK POINT: Cutting to imaginary video-game footage in the middle of a car chase may seem like it's in line with Ben's gaming background, however it's just as likely this was done because creating live footage of those stunts was either too difficult or too expensive. Like, how am I supposed to know the difference?
Also starring Ice Cube, Tika Sumpter, Bruce McGill (all carrying over from "Ride Along"), Benjamin Bratt (last seen in "Snitch"), Olivia Munn (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Ken Jeong (last seen in "Pain & Gain"), Michael Rose (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 3"), Sherri Shepherd (last seen in "Think Like a Man"), Arturo del Puerto (last seen in "CHIPS"), Eric Goins (also last seen in "Ride Along"), Lucius Baston (ditto), Carlos Gomez (last seen in "The Replacement Killers"), Utkarsh Ambudkar (last seen in "Marry Me"), Glen Powell (last heard in "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood"), Nadine Velazquez (also last seen in "Snitch"), Bresha Webb (last seen in "Night School"), James Martin Kelly (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Robert Pralgo (last seen in "Jerry and Marge Go Large"), Tyrese Gibson (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles; Part Two"), Ricky Russert (last seen in "I, Tonya"), Christopher Johnson, Jay Amor, Peter Parente, Rey Hernandez (also last seen in "Pain & Gain"), Yolanda Adams, Tip "T.I." Harris (last seen in "Monster Hunter"), Rick Ross (last seen in "Coming 2 America")
RATING: 4 out of 10 trash can nachos
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