Bad Boys II (2003)

147 minutes and a reported $130M, and Michael Bay makes sure no car in Miami gets home in one piece. The freeway chase, with a car carrier dumping its load onto traffic, is nuts. Then it happens again, and again, until the explosions feel like background music. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence still have the chemistry. Marcus’s nervous fretting and Mike’s cool-guy act bounce off each other, and the bit where a teenage boy shows up to take Marcus’s daughter on a date gets the biggest laughs in the whole movie. The trouble is everything else. The jokes get meaner, the plot wanders off for a finale that feels like a different movie, and Jordi Mollà’s Tapia is all temper and no menace. It made $273.3 million worldwide, but critics gave it a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes. A 4.3 because the stunts are huge and the movie forgot to stop. $459.31 says you end up behind a car carrier on your next road trip and back way off, just in case.

What works: Smith and Lawrence still bounce off each other well, and the freeway chase is a genuinely jaw-dropping piece of stunt work.

What doesn’t: At 147 minutes it’s bloated and mean-spirited, with a weak villain and wall-to-wall explosions that stop meaning anything.

Who it’s for: People who judge an action movie by how many cars it wrecks per minute.