Ride Along is
a drag. The movie reminded me of Martin Lawrence’s Blue Streak (1999)
and National Security (2003), both of which weren’t hits. Ride
Along borrows heavily from every buddy cop movie out there—from the Lethal
Weapon (1987) style of thinking they’ve got everything under control, to
the Rush Hour (1998) vibe where they act like two misfits who
shouldn’t be in the same room together. The movie just rides on the coattails
of these buddy cop films and somehow thinks it’s got a solid screenplay locked
down.
The writers
must’ve been huge Martin Lawrence fans because I even caught traces of Nothing
to Lose (1997) in this movie. Not to mention the Looney Tunes-style car
chase—where have I seen that before? Oh yeah, A Good Day to Die Hard (2013),
which was also a buddy cop movie (a trend that started after the first
two Die Hard films, Die Hard (1988) and Die Harder (1990)).
Maybe that’s why the first two were the real classics—something for the
producers to think about.
The only thing
this movie was missing was a man dressed as a woman (à la Martin
Lawrence’s Big Momma series). Well, there was something close—a woman
mistaken for a man because of her outfit and, of course, the beard.
These writers must’ve binge-watched Martin Lawrence movies all weekend before
writing this mess. None of the jokes landed because I’d seen them all done
better in other films.
The critics’
rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 17% approval, while the audience score is 70%. I’m
siding with the critics here because the plot you’re about to read is as lame
as it gets.
Ben Barber
(Kevin Hart) is a fast-talking, childish-looking security guard who gets his
dream come true when he’s accepted into the police academy.
His potential brother-in-law, James Payton (Ice Cube), is a detective who
doesn’t approve of Ben dating his sister. When James finds out Ben is joining
the academy, he takes him on a 24-hour patrol of Atlanta to prove he’s worthy
of marrying Angela, James’s sister.
The patrol
starts smoothly but quickly turns into a real case that could finally close the
three-year investigation James has been working on against a criminal named
Omar (Laurence Fishburne).
There must be a
part of Kevin Hart comedy that I never get, and ladies and gentlemen, this
movie has been approved for a sequel. Why, Hollywood? Why?
0 comments:
Post a Comment