Every Michael Bay Movie Ranked From Worst To Best
8. Bad Boys II
Bad Boys II is one of the more disappointing sequels in modern movie history - it seemed to take everything the first movie did right, and did it wrong.
It took the first film's sub-two-hour runtime and relatively uncluttered plot and stretched it out into a bloated 147 minutes; the original was also made for a modest $23 million, and that was reflected onscreen with a small scale story and heightened concentration on the banter between our two leads - the film "Bad Boys" was indeed about the Bad Boys.
Unfortunately, Bad Boys II came packing a whopping $130 million budget, and this was also reflected onscreen in the form of excessive action sequences, over-the-top violence, explosions, car chases and shootouts galore.
The first movie's enjoyable (if formulaic) buddy-cop angle was drowned by the amount of cash the production had under its belt, rendering Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as background players amidst all the spectacle.
After a while, it all just gets tiring. Bay didn't understand (and still doesn't) that action and explosions can be fun, but only if used sparingly and effectively - characters are what make movies great. So flesh them out!