It’s impressive as heck that Ride Along 2 managed to be as rancid as the first film in the franchise and manage to find a way into the black commercially. Made criminally cheap at $40 million, the film nearly crossed $100 million in domestic box office. Credit that to Kevin Hart’s emerging megastardom as opposed to a quality film or tremendous word of mouth as Ride Along 2 joins its predecessor as being trash cinema that somehow found enough of an audience to justify another sequel.
This time around Kevin Hart and Ice Cube are partners. James (Cube) is sent on a mission to Miami to bring down a drug kingpin (Benjamin Bratt) with his brother in law (Hart). Shenanigans ensue.
The film’s problem is that it essentially replicates the formula of the first in terms of gags but doesn’t do much beyond it. Ice Cube plays the straight man while Hart mugs for the camera for 102 minutes and there isn’t much beyond it. Ride Along 2 is a retread of the first, nothing more.
There are a ton of extras but none of them add anything to the cinematic experience.
Universal presents Ride Along 2 . Directed by Tim Story. Written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. Starring Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Benjamin Bratt, Ken Jeong, Olivia Munn. Run Time: 102 minutes Rated PG-13. Released on DVD: 4.26.2016
