Ride Along 2
0.5 Waffles!

Stop this ride. I want to get off.

Kevin Hart is back as Ben – the now rookie cop who is getting married to Angela (Tika Sumpter). While the sexy young lady is crazy for this man, Ben still wants to prove his worthiness to her tough-as-nails brother, James (Ice Cube), who is one of the best detectives in the Atlanta PD.

Ben is eager, but not very good, so James sees a chance to drive the young guy away from the job. To make Ben run away as fast as he can, James invites the rookie to join his mission to Miami, where they are trying to find the supplier to one of Atlanta’s biggest drug dealers (yep, sending an employee to Miami always is the way to make them hate their job).

Once the brothers-in-law get to South Beach, they realize they have walked into something bigger than they ever imagined.

If you didn’t like Ride Along, do you really think Ride Along 2 is the movie that rights all of the past wrongs?

Sadly, director Tim Story has to rely on endless chase scenes and Kevin Hart rants to stretch out the movie’s thin, practically vacant script. Hart is a super funny guy, but you feel like he has been left on his own to improvise on the spot because the dialogue hasn’t been written and the story hasn’t been fleshed out.

This leaves the funny man looking like an idiot, which Hart proves doesn’t have to be the case to get laughs. Many will be lured in by the imbecilic jokes and situations, but Hart is hilarious when he is allowed to take it down a notch or two and play a real character instead of portraying a cartoon who is punished physically and emotionally. Ride Along 2 almost is passable in those scenes where Ben has some confidence and shows a smooth personality, but those moments are fleeting.

Meanwhile, Ice Cube is left to scowl all the way through Ride Along 2. Whereas Story might have asked Hart to improvise some wacky dialogue, he usually just asks Ice Cube to look mean, growl and scowl. He also can do more than what is asked of him here, but we’ll have to see him in another movie to find out.

Are we destined to have a Ride Along 3?

Ride Along 2 is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, sexual content, language and some drug material.