Ride Along sequel takes same route as original
REVIEW Ride Along 2 Where: Cineplex Odeon Westshore, SilverCity Starring: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart Directed by: Tim Story Parental advisory: PG Rating: Two stars out of four
With the same brand of silliness and a bit more creativity than the original, Ride Along 2 doesn’t pretend to be anything more than what it is — a sequel designed to offer a second helping of exactly what worked the first time around.
The original Ride Along topped the box office for three weeks when it opened in January 2014, collecting $150-million US returns on its modest $25-million budget. It focused on Ben (Kevin Hart), an excitable video-game junkie and wannabe cop, and his attempts to impress his disinterested future brother-in-law, James (Ice Cube), a hard-nosed police detective. Hart is goofy and slapstick, Cube is stern and annoyed.
Producers reprise the formula and return to many of the original film’s artists for the sequel, including screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi and director Tim Story.
This time, Ben is a fresh graduate of the police academy a week away from his wedding to Angela (Tika Sumpter). He’s still trying to impress her brother, James, who still can’t stand him.
At Angela’s urging, James reluctantly agrees to take Ben on a police mission from Atlanta to Miami, where James is on the hunt for a suspicious hacker, A.J. (Ken Jeong).
A.J. is linked to a case James is working in Atlanta, but he’s also connected to a major Miami drug lord, Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt), who has been masquerading as a philanthropist. This prompts a local homicide detective, Maya (Olivia Munn), to join the investigation.
The plot is too complicated to explain, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just about setting up ever more elaborate situations for Hart to be a goofball to Cube’s straight man.
The actors deliver, just like in the last movie and others in which they play similar roles. Cube is predictably tough and snarly, making Hart seem even more smiley and animated by contrast. He eats up the camera in every scene.
Everything else is a side dish, though Jeong amuses as a sex-crazed hacker nebbish and Sherri Shepherd is over the top as an obsessive wedding planner. Munn gets in on the action scenes and performs a sultry dance with Bratt, but Sumpter is given little to do.