Skip to footer

'Ride Along 2' has the same silliness and a bit more creativity than the first movie

'Ride Along 2' stars Kevin Hart as a new cop who attempts to impress his future brother-in-law, James (Ice Cube), who is a police detective. 

|
Quantrell D. Colbert/Universal Pictures/AP
'Ride Along 2' stars Ice Cube (l.) and Kevin Hart (r.).
  • By Sandy Cohen Associated Press

With the same brand of silliness and a bit more creativity than the original, "Ride Along 2" doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is: a sequel designed to offer a second helping of exactly what worked the first time around.

The original "Ride Along" topped the box office for three straight weeks when it opened in January of 2014, collecting $150 million returns on its modest $25 million budget. It focused on Ben (Kevin Hart), an excitable video-game junkie and wannabe cop, and his attempts to impress his disinterested future brother-in-law, James (Ice Cube), a hard-nosed police detective. Hart is goofy and slapstick; Cube is stern and annoyed.

Producers reprise the formula and return to many of the original film's artists for the sequel, including screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi and director Tim Story.

This time around, Ben is a fresh graduate of the police academy a week away from his wedding to Angela (Tika Sumpter). He's still trying to impress her brother, James, who still can't stand him.

At Angela's urging, James reluctantly agrees to bring Ben on a police mission from Atlanta to Miami, where James is on the hunt for a suspicious hacker, AJ (Ken Jeong). AJ is linked to a case James is working in Atlanta, but he's also connected to a major Miami drug lord, Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt), who has been masquerading as a philanthropist. This prompts a local homicide detective, Maya (Olivia Munn), to join the investigation.

The plot is too complicated to explain (there's government corruption and shipping fraud involved), but it doesn't even really matter. It's just about setting up ever-more-elaborate situations for Hart to be a goofball to Cube's straight man.

The actors deliver, just like in the last movie and others where they play similar roles. Cube is predictably tough and snarly, making Hart seem even more smiley and animated by contrast. He eats up the camera in every scene.

Everything else is a side dish, though Jeong amuses and Sherri Shepherd is over-the-top as an obsessive wedding planner. Munn gets in on the action scenes, but Sumpter is given little to do.

Since this is a buddy-cop movie, it wouldn't be complete without car chases and explosions, and the fancy rides and fireworks in "Ride Along 2" reflect the film's larger budget. There are glamorous Miami settings and sleek sports cars, including a breathtaking baby-blue Jaguar.

The most playful sequence involves that car and special effects that transform a real street chase into what looks like a video game.

Although "Ride Along 2" has fancier trim than the original, it's really just the same old ride. But if you thought the first one was fun, taking another spin won't disappoint.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'Ride Along 2' has the same silliness and a bit more creativity than the first movie
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2016/0117/Ride-Along-2-has-the-same-silliness-and-a-bit-more-creativity-than-the-first-movie
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe