1387. Ride Along 2 (2016)

Starring: Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Olivia Munn

Director: Tim Story

Running Time: 102 mins

Ride Along 2 is an American film and the sequel to Ride Along. As Ben’s wedding nears, he hears that James is going to Miami to uncover a nationwide drug dealer, and decides to tag along to prove to his future brother-in-law that he can be a good police detective.

Normally, comedy sequels are either painfully worse, or exactly the same thing again. However, I genuinely felt that Ride Along 2 is an improvement on its predecessor. Retaining the excellent chemistry between Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, as well as a lot of the great humour that made the first so fun, this sequel ups the ante thanks to its improved action sequences and relatively more exciting plot.

However, despite all the improvements, the stand-out in Ride Along 2 is once again the two leads’ chemistry. Kevin Hart and Ice Cube both give individually hilarious performances, but their feisty rapport gets even more heated second time round, making it feel a little less like a rehash of the first film, and allowing for some even crazier mishaps throughout.

Meanwhile, the humour is just as good as the first film. It’s very light-hearted, and a lot of it comes from the two central performances, but I was delighted to see that there was still a consistent string of decent laughs from start to finish here, and I was really surprised that there was no point where watching Kevin Hart fall over even more got boring.

But that’s all the same as the first film. The reason that I liked Ride Along 2 a lot more was simply because it felt a lot more like a big-budget blockbuster, with exciting and energetic action sequences brilliantly directed by Tim Story, and a plot that, whilst not enthralling and totally unpredictable, kept me pretty engaged and entertained even when the film wasn’t going for comedy, which was my biggest gripe with the first film.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Ride Along 2. It may be a simple and light-hearted watch, but it plays to its strengths with a good heap of fun action, and yet more brilliant chemistry from Ice Cube and Kevin Hart, so that’s why I’m giving it a 7.3.