Your enjoyment of “Ride Along 2” will be directly linked to your enjoyment of Kevin Hart. The follow up to the wildly successful 2014 buddy cop comedy once again pairs Hart and Ice Cube but it is the comedian who dominates.
Ben Barber (Hart) is a beat cop one month out of the academy. He seems to have learned more about being a cop from playing video games than from the Academy, but nonetheless, he is determined to shadow his soon-to-be-brother-in-law James Payton (Ice Cube) when the Atlanta vice cop travels to Miami to track down a hacker (Ken Jeong). Ben thinks the Miami run will prove to everyone he should be a detective and while James doesn’t want the young cop tagging along, he agrees in the hope that the trip will prove Ben isn’t ready to move up the chain. In Miami they team up with a homicide cop (Olivia Munn) as the case takes a new and dangerous turn.
At the “Ride Along 2” screening I was at I sat across the aisle from a man who must be the world’s biggest Kevin Hart fan. He giggled and guffawed throughout. I’m glad he enjoyed the movie and hope Hart continues to delight him for years to come. Me, I didn’t find his antics quite as funny. He’s a whirling dervish, a nonstop bundle of energy who will do anything to get a laugh. He’s like a Jack Russell puppy that is always happy to see you and jumps in your lap all the time. At first its cute but as time goes by it gets annoying.
I admire his commitment but think he’s caught a bad case of Will Ferrellitus, a disease that affects famous comedians who have no self-control in the urge to get a giggle. The only cure is a director who understands that often less is more. Tim Story is not that director.
Ice Cube, on the other hand, is used well, displaying his trademark scowl with menace and humour. It’s a shame that Maya, film’s primary female character played by Olivia Munn, isn’t given more to do. Her presence here adds marquee value but little else.
“Ride Along 2” is a simple movie that relies on the A.B.C.’s of buddy cop movies: A.) Action. B.) Broad comedy. C.) Cleavage. All three are on display, although the action is by-the-book except for one sequence that blends video game action with real life. If more of the movie had this same kind of inventive spirit it might have been more fun.
There are two schools of thought regarding threequels. The third part of any movie franchise might be, 1.) a waste of time, made primarily to cash in on the name brand value of the property (think “Godfather 3” or “Superman 3”) or 2.) an economical way of telling a story unencumbered with the weight of establishing characters or origin story (think “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” or “Goldfinger”).
“The Hangover Part III” certainly has name recognition and doesn’t waste any time in reintroducing the characters, but does it fall into category one or two?
The movie begins with Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) making a spectacular break from a Thai prison. Meanwhile in the U.S. Alan (Zach Galifianakis) is out of control. A deadly accident with a giraffe sets off a series of events that lead to an intervention by his family and friends (Wolfpack members Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms). Just when it seems that Alan might pull his life together the Wolfpack is coerced into playing bounty hunter, searching for Chow and $21 million in stolen gold. If they fail, hapless Doug (Justin Bartha, who, once again doesn’t get to do any of the fun stuff) will be executed.
The second “Hangover” movie was an unfunny beat-for-beat carbon copy of the first. It contained all the elements of the first plus a monkey but it was too slavishly devoted to recreating the original to be anything more than a disappointment.
The new one is something else again. It’s a heist film, sans the monkey and most of the laughs. The “Hangover” movies have always been dark and edgy but this episode lays it on thick.
Much of he humor comes from playing well-established characters off of one another. Trouble is, director Todd Phillips has chosen to wrong two characters to focus on.
“I got a dumb sense of humor, bra,” says Alan. And how. There’s strange and there’s funny, and, as Alan, Galifianakis revels in the former more than the latter. Used sparingly he can raise a smile, but when the messy death of a giraffe is the comedic highlight of Alan’s storyline you know something is amiss. What’s funnier than killing a giraffe? Nothing apparently.
Jeong is also best enjoyed in small doses. Both actors are fearless, but taking risks doesn’t always add up to big laughs.
Cooper and Helms are relegated to the supporting cast, mostly there to react with a hearty “WT?” to the strange goings on.
And it is strange. The story is stuck in limbo somewhere between heist flick and comedy–with some attempted heartwarming moments thrown in for good measure–never really committing to either.
At one point Chou dramatically asks, “How do you kill what is already dead?” In terms of the “Hangover” franchise—which I thought had a fatal case of sequelitis after the second installment—you simply put the wrong people in the leads.
“I honestly don’t think my career will get any better than this,” says Ken Jeong. “I think I’ve peaked.”
Jeong returns in The Hangover Part III as Mr. Chow, the violent gangster with a heart of gold. Or at least fool’s gold.
“He’s a villain who likes to laugh,” says Jeong. “Mr. Chow changed my life,” he says.
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“He opened up a new world for me and I was able to work a lot as an actor because of the first Hangover. Now this is the biggest role I’ve ever had, in the part that I’m most well known for. You can’t ask for better than that.
“This is beyond anything I ever expected. When I quit my day job as a doctor I just wanted to be a working actor. I just wanted to have lines in movies. That’s all I ever wanted.”
Before finding fame as an actor, Jeong lead a double life — practicing medicine during the day and doing standup at night.
“I wasn’t trying to keep (the two lives) separate, like Clark Kent separate,” he says. “It was my hobby, my golf. It was a way for me to keep up with the intense hours of medicine. Work hard, play hard mentality.”
These days he is in touch with some of his former patients.
“I have patients that I email with or keep in contact with on Facebook and they’re always happy for me because I wasn’t a wacky, schticky guy when I was a doctor.
“I was pretty intense and pretty serious.
“The stuff I get now from my patients is, ‘We’re just so happy you have an outlet. You were just so serious. We thought you would explode.’
“When they found out I did standup comedy back in the day when I was practising medicine they’d say, ‘I’m so happy for you. You’ve finally found a way to channel all this stress out.’”
The Hangover Part III is the finale of the series, but Jeong would like to see Mr. Chow go on more adventures.
“Mr. Chow, and I’m not saying this because I’m promoting the movie, is my favourite character,” he says. “The spectrum of imagination on that character is so wide.
“I would love to see him in any situation and see what he would say or do. I would love a Chow spin-off. I love that character so much.”
Your enjoyment of “Ride Along 2” will be directly linked to your enjoyment of Kevin Hart. The follow up to the wildly successful 2014 buddy cop comedy once again pairs Hart and Ice Cube but it is the comedian who dominates.
