Key Takeaways:
– ‘Bad Boys II’ is often called a ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ action movie and managed to outgross its prequel.
– Multiple iterations of script rewrites pushed the film’s release to eight years after the first movie.
– Despite the script problems and negative reviews, ‘Bad Boys II’ was a commercial success.
– The film spawned a TV spinoff, ‘LA’s Finest’ and laid the ground for ‘Bad Boys Ride or Die’, releasing in 2024.
If you enjoy popcorn cinema with mind-blowing action sequences and hilariously over the top dialogue, ‘Bad Boys II’ is probably on your top ten list. Directed by Michael Bay, this film, a follow-up to ‘Bad Boys’, went down as one of the most entertaining yet critically ripped apart action movies in history.
Eight years after its predecessor, ‘Bad Boys II’ popped up on the big screen, doing more than just surviving the vitriol thrown by film critics. It saw Bay once again throwing caution to the winds, ignoring narrative coherence, and focusing on high-octane action scenes. To his credit, this gamble paid off handsomely, with the movie pulling in more revenue than the original and leading to a TV sequel fifteen years later.
But how did we get to this point? Let’s rewind and take a trip into the chaotic world of ‘Bad Boys II’. The original movie was quite a commercial hit despite having a flimsy script. This success led to a sequel, for which the scriptwriting process turned out to be a nightmare with repeated rewrites and a myriad of contributing writers.
Columbia/Sony producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson wanted to make a sequel quickly and initially considered writer/director Tim Dey for the project. However, after dissatisfaction with Dey’s initial draft, the script was passed between several handlers including Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, Cormac and Marianne Wibberly, and Ron Shelton.
Shelton tried to modify the script but admitted he hadn’t even watched the first ‘Bad Boys’ before he started writing. Following his draft, ‘Permanent Midnight’ writer Jerry Stahl was brought on board, but even his input couldn’t congeal the messy story.
Eventually, the script reached the hands of Judd Apatow with assistance from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg before getting its final touches from other writers. The long and exhausting process points out the perils of having too many cooks in the kitchen.
Despite the script mayhem, Michael Bay demonstrated his characteristic moves of improvisation and creativity during the filmmaking process. He decided to get the villain Johnny Tapia to speak with a Cuban accent three days before the filming started. And to create convincing scenes, he managed to create real tension between actors on set.
When the movie hit theaters, it made a splashing $273 million worldwide – a pretty big number compared to the original’s $141 million haul. However, critics were not kind and the film got a low score of 23% on Rotten Tomatoes and a metascore of 38. But who cares about critics when audiences love it, right? The movie holds an audience score of 78% and an IMDb rating of 6.6, suggesting that viewers appreciated its entertaining nature.
‘Bad Boys II’ also paved the way for a TV spinoff, ‘L.A.’s Finest’, starring Gabrielle Union reprising her role from the second film as Marcus Burnett’s sister, Sydney. Moreover, the series ‘Bad Boys Ride or Die’ is set to hit the screens in June 2024, proving the franchise is still alive and kicking.
To sum it up, ‘Bad Boys II’ may not have been a darling of the critics, but it made a place for itself within the audience. It showed that with the right balance of action, humor, and a generous dollop of chaos, a film can be entertaining regardless of critical opinion. Let’s see if the same formula works when ‘Bad Boys Ride or Die’ rolls into theaters in 2024. Until then, keep enjoying the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ ethos of ‘Bad Boys II’. It’s never a dull watch, thanks to the Bay way!
