2003 / 106 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Okay, I’ll admit one thing right off the bat: this isn’t a great movie and no amount of suspension of disbelief, no amount of argument, no amount of anything is going to make anyone think otherwise. It has as much plot as an Advil commercial, probably less because at least Advil commercials have a clear agenda in mind. In an Advil commercial, usually, there is this guy with a headache. The guy bitches about said headache. He is given some Advil. The afore-mentioned guy marvels that, Whaddya know, his headache has now been vanquished by the mighty power of Advil. All hail Advil. You like that? Well, you aren’t even gonna get even that much plot out of this movie.

But the ludicrous spell of this movie doesn’t even demand that much plot. I sat in the theater, largely spellbound by this piddling trifle of a film, and was amazed by how little I gave a shit that nothing was really happening. If I want a plot, I read a novel. I do not, however, read an issue of Maxim. This film is the cinematic equivalent of an issue of Maxim, only more ludicrous and with less articles about scoring with women. There are four very lovely ladies in this film, and this film makes no bones about doing its damnedest to make them look as hot as humanly possible. I’ve seen less than complimentary pictures of Cameron Diaz, but here she is a true goddess of the highest order. Ditto for Drew Barrymore and especially Lucy Liu (though I must mention that no amount of cinematic magic can hide that lazy eye). This movie might pretend to be about empowering women, hell, maybe it even is about empowering women, but it’s also about objectifying them at the same time. There were many women in the audience with whom I saw this film. There were also a few guys who had come unescorted and looking furtively around themselves (sort of like guys buying an issue of Playboy). And I would assume that both parties got from this film precisely what they wanted to get out of this film. The women got to see women kicking a great deal of ass. And the men got to ogle some lovely ladies for about two hours. I was in the ogling party, but I also enjoyed the ass kicking as well.

The ogling front is well served by this film. You get to see the girls in cowboy outfits, in French lingerie, in tight cat suits, in AC/DC shirts (I had no idea a hot girl in a Judas Priest shirt could be so sexy) whatever your fancy, your libido will thank you for purchasing a ticket to this film. However, it’s on the front of ass kicking that this film falls tragically short. The first film had some excellent fight scenes. They were fun and beautifully shot and they provided a sheer burst of kinetic energy. Alas, the fight scenes in this film look far too rendered to ever take off. These are not the beautiful vixens from the first movie, no; these are mere computer simulations of them. These are but pixilated avatars for Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore. And why? Because no human being could do any of the shit they do in this movie and nothing can convince us otherwise. The action scenes are all far too ludicrously over the top to work at all. If you thought the action in the first one was too much, well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Yes, there are occasional glimmers of excitement to be had here, but not a lot. The action is all ridiculous, and not even in a cool way.

You may have noticed that I have not yet mentioned the plot. Well, that’s because there isn’t any. There is a stream of occurrences masquerading as a plot. Apparently, the Federal Witness Relocation Program has decided to contain all the names of everyone involved in that program on two little rings. And when someone has both these rings, I guess, they can rub out anyone in the Witness Relocation Program. Yes, even Henry Hill. How is the information contained in these rings? I have no idea. An even better question: WHY is the information contained on these rings? Rings? Is it fucking “Lord of the Rings” here? Is Gollum going to grab the rings from Cameron Diaz and start blathering on about his “Precious”? (If you want something precious from Cameron, might I direct you in the vicinity of her magical ass.) I mean, what the hell are these screenwriters smoking and where the hell can I get some? Because if it enables this plot to make sense to these people, it must be some phenomenal weed. Couldn’t the information just be on a computer disk or something? I don’t know. Just a thought. Makes more sense than a couple of fucking rings, I can tell you that. Now, you see, if the action sequences had worked, I probably wouldn’t have even cared about the damn rings. But they don’t, so here I go.

Cameron, Lucy and Drew all seem to be having an infectious amount of fun. And that fun is contagious to the audience, which is why I was able to sit through this at all. There is a nice moment between Drew and Crispin Glover (hooray! He’s back! No idea why or how, but on this point I don’t really care!) near the end of the film that made me happy. Unfortunately, it’s followed by another moment that I absolutely hated. Demi Moore is the bad girl here (the movie pretends that this is a startling revelation, but if you’ve seen a commercial for this flick you already know) and she is probably better than I’ve seen her in anything. Perhaps that will tip you off to the fact that I’ve never really liked her all that much. I also enjoyed the over the top work of Justin Theroux here, doing a weirdo Irish De Niro impression that kept me strangely entertained. Matt LeBlanc and Luke Wilson both return, and both of them are just fine. And John Cleese actually doesn’t embarrass himself by appearing in this film where he has no right or need to be. So I guess that’s something. And Crispin Glover’s work is, as always, unimpeachable. But Bernie Mac is just the wrong choice for this movie. He’s too much. And if there’s anything this movie doesn’t need it’s too much of something. His comedic style just overbalances every scene of the film he’s in. Bill Murray worked much better. His laidback cool was more in harmony with everything else in the movie. We see a photo of him in this movie and it’s funnier than anything Bernie Mac has to contribute. Apparently, Murray and Lucy Liu got along like a couple of wolverines on angel dust. But did they have to use Bernie Mac? Ah. I’ll give it up now.

So, to summarize, this movie is nowhere near good. But if you have a penis, it will thank you for seeing this film. That much I can tell you. Your brain, however, might punish you for it. But, as Robin Williams once eloquently said “God gave you a brain and a penis and only enough blood to operate one at a time”. The fact that I barely thought how asinine this film was until I had left the theater goes a long way toward proving this theory.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2003 at 1:22 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.