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BY TOM MEEK
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For nearly two and a half hours, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay pound away at your sensibilities with this sequel to the 1995 cop-buddy hit that put the tandem (Armageddon and Pearl Harbor) on the map. The scale and scope are impressive, though, from the thunderous car chases that level downtown Miami to the Rasta road pirates and the Mexican standoff with the Cuban military. It’s all brilliantly choreographed, and yet it lacks purpose and thrill. What carries the film is the comedic pairing of stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, who actually improve on their contentious oddball chemistry. Smith reprises his hunky cool Mike Lowrey, who’s constantly upstaging Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett, a jittery family man suffering from erectile dysfunction, and the tension gets ratcheted up a notch when Mike secretly begins to date Marcus’s sister (the lovely Gabrielle Union). The cockamamie plot hinges on a maniacal drug dealer (a wonderfully over-the-top Jordi Molla) who’s trying to take over the streets of Miami, and Joe Pantoliano gets thrown into the mix as the stressed-out police chief trying to hold it all together. But the finest moment comes when the two African-American cops burst out of KKK robes during a cross burning to make a bust.
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