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Kevin Hart and Ice Cube are seemingly perfect for each other. Hart, with his animated energy and ridiculousness, bounces off Ice Cube’s stoic anger and seriousness. It’s a classic comedy set-up. It’s SpongeBob and Squidward. It’s Leslie and Ron. It’s every SNL sketch. So it is no surprise that RIDE ALONG was a box office hit, especially with how booming Kevin Hart is right now. He is like the man bun: a little strange, but harmless enough and ubiquitous anyway. Now in 2016, Tim Story is back to give us RIDE ALONG 2, returning with writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi.
The film takes place almost entirely in Miami after the opening bust creates a lead for a drug operation there. Detective James Payton (Ice Cube) at first refuses to take his soon to be brother-in-law Ben Barber (Kevin Hart), but decides to bring him along in hope that the scope of the mission will discourage him from pursuing a career as a detective. In Miami, the two recruit a native detective Maya (Olivia Munn) and criminal hacker A.J (Ken Jeong) in order to track down the cocaine kingpin named Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt). From there the film follows standard buddy cop tropes, complete with causing an obscene amount of damage to public property, a failed lead causing firing, and a renegade mission to save the say.
The problems that face RIDE ALONG 2 are the same ones that face most Leslie Jones SNL sketches. Having a good bit or character doesn’t make something automatically funny; the jokes still have to be there. The writers seems to assume that as long as Kevin Hart and Ice Cube are arguing about something ridiculous Kevin Hart is doing, it will be funny. In better films, the arguments provide set up for analogies or jokes within the banter to provide the real laughs. Several moments here have the air that they should be funny, but nothing funny is being said. For example, when the two cops arrive in Miami the movie sets up a punchline for the way Hart is dressed to blend in. But when Hart steps out of the car, his outfit isn’t nearly ridiculous enough and Ice Cube does not berate him with enough jokes or colorful language for it to actually be funny. This also happens with the set-up of Kevin Hart being in pain and… mainly that. Whether he is in in Olivia Munn’s nerve pinch or being chased by a crocodile, his fear is the joke. None of it works as well as it should simply because the writing is not strong enough.
The film is still funny at times. Ken Jeong is a great addition to the franchise and his interactions with Hart often succeed. The movie works best when it gets nerdy and explores territory not traced over in the standard buddy cop film fare. Olivia Munn, on the other hand, serves only as a romantic interest for Ice Cube. Her role in advancing the plot could be combined with Cube and she gets next to zero jokes throughout the movie. In the end, RIDE ALONG 2‘s writing fails it while its actors struggle to bring it up.
