Alright, so this week we arrive back at our most misguided genre, the Chain Reaction. It was incredibly difficult jumping from 1986 to 2016. Not many actors, even big stars, are still making BMT films after 20 years. So jumping from 1986’s No Mercy to a 2016 film seemed an impossible task. Thank god for Bruce McGill. Unlike Richard Gere and Kim Basinger, McGill is still going strong, and allowed us to jump straight from No Mercy to 2016’s sequel du jour, Ride Along 2. This also means we got extra content this week as the original Ride Along is also BMT (and both DVDs have commentaries by director Tim Story). Lucky us. Let’s go!
Ride Along (2014) – BMeTric: 22.5
(Kind of interesting BMeTric, so stable. That is unusual. Graphs like this come about when, against all odds, a movie’s rating doesn’t change and they were released after 2011 (so no potential for the 2011 bump). Except it isn’t really against all odds, 6.1 is literally the average rating on IMDb, so there is just no regression to the mean at all. Anyways, 6.0+ is more common than you think for BMT, but it is always fun to watch them … usually means that we are not the target audience. And with this movie … yeah, we aren’t the target audience.)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Intermittently funny vehicle for the fast-talking comedic talent of Hart finds him playing a motor-mouthed security guard who joins tough-as-nails cop Ice Cube on a 24-hour ride-along. Object: to prove himself not only worthy of fulfilling his dream of joining the department, but also of marrying his one-day partner’s sister. Nothing we haven’t seen before in buddy-cop movies, from 48Hrs. to Lethal Weapon, yet this one is apparently striving to be a comic version of Training Day. Cube is a perfect foil for Hart, who’s amusing in short spurts – but this movie provides an overdose.
(First, that is one long review. Second, nice hyphen game as usual Leonard (I’m convinced someone on his staff has a bet going to see how many hyphens they can fit into a short review, we’ve seen this before). And third, yeah, I would have blindly guess two stars from Maltin before reading this review. This movie is going to be vaguely funny, ten minutes too long, and occasionally aggravating. And not that bad. Book it.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5klp6rkHIks
(Meh. I obviously remember this trailer from when it came out and it looks meh. Does seem like they went the Training Day route which is fine. Do not like the portrayal of video games in this movie … that isn’t how they work, but whatever.)
Directors – Tim Story – (Known For: Think Like a Man; Barbershop; BMT: Taxi (BMT); Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Fantastic Four; Think Like a Man Too; Ride Along 2; Ride Along; Notes: From the Taxi preview: The top grossing African-American director of all time (domestic at least, not sure about worldwide). Actually just retook the top spot from Tyler Perry with Ride Along 2. I’ll add that he has announced he is directing Humbug starring Ice Cube as a real estate mogul in a modern retelling of A Christmas Carol. Be still my beating heart.)
Writers – Greg Coolidge (screenplay & story) – (BMT: Employee of the Month; Sorority Boys; Ride Along 2; Ride Along; Notes: Not much about him online, but that is an incredible filmography. I need to see Sorority Boys at some point, just an absurd White Chicks-esque premise.)
Jason Mantzoukas (screenplay) – (BMT: Ride Along; Notes: WHAT. So apparently there is news reports about him getting hired to rewrite the script when it was about a hard boiled detective taking his potential brother-in-law on a ride along, but the brother was a uptight white psychiatrist. It was rewritten after though. Kind of surprised he hasn’t gotten writing credits on anything else. Obviously from The League and the How Did This Get Made podcast among many other things, but most recently seen in a major role in Dirty Grandpa. I love Jason Mantzoukas, he’s hilarious.)
Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (screenplay) – (Known For: The Invitation; Crazy/Beautiful; BMT: The Tuxedo (BMT); Æon Flux (BMT); R.I.P.D. (BMT); Clash of the Titans; Ride Along 2; Ride Along; Notes: Legends. How does one go from Crazy/Beautiful to The Tuxedo exactly? If you want some insight this article is incredibly in depth. Turns out … you do one solid adaptation and you’ll basically be tapped for a million more. Honestly I don’t think the script was the problem with most of these movies so get yo money.)
Actors – Ice Cube – (Known For: 22 Jump Street; 21 Jump Street; Friday; The Book of Life; Boyz n the Hood; Barbershop: A Fresh Cut; Three Kings; Barbershop; Rampart; Higher Learning; Barbershop 2: Back in Business; Trespass; The Glass Shield; The Longshots; BMT: xXx²: State of the Union (BMT); Anaconda; Torque (BMT); Are We Done Yet?; Ghosts of Mars (BMT); Are We There Yet?; First Sunday; Lottery Ticket; Ride Along 2; Friday After Next; I Got the Hook Up; All About the Benjamins; Dangerous Ground; Ride Along; Next Friday; Notes: Cube! A legend in his own right if only for Ghosts of Mars, a secret BMT favorite. Most famous for being a primary player in NWA he has since become somewhat of a comedy staple. Started with Friday in the 90’s and then the Barbershop series in the 00’s, he’s a full blown comedian at this point. Impressive dude.)
Kevin Hart – (Known For: The Secret Life of Pets; Central Intelligence; This Is the End; The 40 Year-Old Virgin; Death at a Funeral; The Five-Year Engagement; Think Like a Man; Top Five; About Last Night; Death of a Dynasty; BMT: Epic Movie; Superhero Movie; Soul Plane; Scary Movie 4 (BMT); Meet Dave; In the Mix; Scary Movie 3 (BMT); Little Fockers; Fool’s Gold (BMT); Drillbit Taylor; Along Came Polly; Think Like a Man Too; Get Hard; Ride Along 2; Ride Along; Grudge Match (BMT); The Wedding Ringer (BMT); Notes: He exploded as one of the most prolific comedic actors a few years ago (and trust me, some people are not happy about that for some reason) with Ride Along, Get Hard, Central Intelligence, Ride Along 2, and the Wedding Ringer coming out in the last 3 years basically.)
Also stars Tika Sumpter (seen in A Madea Christmas!!! So exciting)
Budget/Gross – $25 million / Domestic: $134,938,200 (Worldwide: $154,468,902)
(A huge hit. No wonder they made a sequel and are planning on making it a trilogy. Tim Story is box office gold for a reason. And that reason seems to be he can wrangle comedians into making something that resembles a coherent comedic feature film. And he’s friends with Ice Cube who is also an amazing comedic actor it turns out.)
#13 for the Action – Buddy Comedy genre
(Super successful. Between Lethal Weapon 4 and 21 Jump Street. Picking out an interesting era, 2000-2005 seems to be a little bit of a Buddy Comedy Rush. Strangely enough the common denominator is Jackie Chan, which is interesting. Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon and their sequels all came out at the tail end of the Lethal Weapon (and general buddy cop) era and may have ushered in more of a general dual lead action-comedy formula into Hollywood. A lot of the films of the subsequent era naturally plays on this: Central Intelligence, 21 and 22 Jump Street, and The Other Guys all play off of the 80s and 90s buddy comedy formula in interesting ways. And perhaps that is where this movie failed: it doesn’t play off of it, it plays into it, and chose to poke fun at the late 90s / early 00s cop dramas instead. We’ll see.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 19% (23/124): Kevin Hart’s livewire presence gives Ride Along a shot of necessary energy, but it isn’t enough to rescue this would-be comedy from the buddy-cop doldrums.
(Too bad I’m not a huge fan of Kevin Hart, otherwise there might be some hope. I just hoping to not be bored. Can you give me that Ride Along. Give me some horrible lines and stupid characters to make fun of, please.)
Poster – Sklog Along (D+)
(Weird. This is like the opposite of my poster philosophy, detailed in my upcoming book Posterized! The Michael Jordan Story. It’s drab and dull with meager symmetry and a simplistic font that can easily be changed to Sklog Along. Get out of here. Only plus is that I like posters that use yellow effectively.)
Tagline(s) – Propose to this cop’s sister? Rookie mistake. (C-)
(They really shoehorn the plot right in there, huh? Wish it was more clever and had better flow.)
Keyword(s) – police; Top Ten by BMeTric: 92.8 Batman & Robin (1997); 89.5 Catwoman (2004); 84.6 Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997); 82.7 Street Fighter (1994); 80.6 Home Alone 3 (1997); 79.3 House of the Dead (2003); 78.7 Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966); 77.4 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 77.2 RoboCop 3 (1993); 75.8 Inspector Gadget (1999);
(Amazing and horrible list at the same time. This list should be movies like RIPD and the like, but they are drowned out by movies “with a police officer in it”. Bull. But whatever. I’m just thankful there is a relevant keyword at all for a recently released movie. The keywords are generally trash. At least this reminds me that I really want to watch Robocop 3)
Notes – Originally the movie intended for Dwayne Johnson to play James and Ryan Reynolds to play Ben. (say whaaaaaaaat, that might have been an incredible movie)
When Ben is surrounded by the group of bikers he quotes multiple lines from Denzel Washington’s speech in Training Day (2001), such as his line about playing basketball in Pelican Bay. This is one of many references to Training Day made throughout the film. (yup, it is supposed to be kind of a comedic take on it clearly)
When Ice Cube is talking in the conference room about the 126 experience, he says “today was a good day.” He is actually quoting one of his popular songs titled “It Was A Good Day.”
Ben is considered short. Kevin Hart is only 4.5 inches shorter than Ice Cube. (ha!)
While James’ car is an unmarked police car, throughout the film, James never turns on any siren or lights (however Ben attempts to). (okay … I was hoping to end it with a fun fact, but that is just kind of dumb)
Bad Movie Twins 