Kevin Hart and Ice Cube lead the returning lineup of Ride Along 2, the sequel to the blockbuster action-comedy that gave us the year’s most popular comedy duo. Joining Hart and Cube for the next chapter of the series are director Tim Story, as well as Cube’s fellow producers—Will Packer, Matt Alvarez and Larry Brezner—who will produce alongside Cube.

Here’s an Old School Review for Ride Along 2. I couldn’t muster more than this for the lack luster sequel that still may generate enough revenue for a third outing.

The Good:

Ice Cube and Kevin Hart still have some chemistry. Seeing these guys work together is pretty entertaining especially when compared to some of Ice Cube’s other pairings in the past. Their team-up works as well as Chris Tucker and Mike Epps.

There’s some seriously good physical comedy in this movie. Kevin Hart is really good at both punchline timing and also bringing the physical gags to create some of the most hilarious scenes throughout the film.

Ken Jeong is less annoying and borderlines funny again! I’m personally pretty tired of his routine and only find him funny when there’s a healthy balance between completely unhinged and completely restrained. If he sways too much one way or the other then I find him pretty annoying.

The Bad

Kevin Hart’s routine is running a bit thin. There are far too many jokes within this movie that rely on Kevin Hart to deliver jokes that just aren’t funny with his enthusiasm expected to compensate. It doesn’t.

Kevin Hart is the same character in every movie. This guy simply does not create any different persona’s for his films which isn’t always a problem but with this movie it seems he’s retreading a lot of old ground. I simply cannot tell the difference between his character in Ride Along and his character in Think Like A Man or even Paper Soldiers outside of their living situations.

The plot is paper thin and predictable. This movie follows the generic buddy cop formula for movies to a T while heavily relying on an interest from audiences to watch the lead actors walk through the motions. I played a game guessing what would happen throughout the movie and got 9 out of 10 right.

Overall:

This movie tries its best to be Michael Bay worthy with the gratuitous explosions, sunny decal, and layering of bikini clad model worthy women sprinkled throughout. There’s more than one time I felt this movie made me think of it as an insufficient Bad Boys 3.