Strong and Moving!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Making things more frozen than necessary is Ice Cube, scrunching up his face in attempting to portray a hard-ass of a cop; one of those lone, righteous moralists who is willing to go against any and all authority in order to prove himself as being right all along about his case. Of course he is, but what is confusing is how the film seems to condemn his behavior as a loner, yet justifies his actions during the course of the story. It is never clear which side the movie falls on and it most likely does not matter. Truthfully, none of the characters or plot points seem necessary at all except to showcase the difference between Hart's ambitious high-school security guard trying to become an Atlanta policeman and Ice Cube's tough-as-nails detective on the hunt for the most ferocious kingpin in the city, so terrifying and imposing that no one has ever seen his face (You will guess who it is right away; the opening credits give it away).

Simply because they would not be interesting. "Ride Along" is an American 100-minute movie from 2 years ago directed by Tim Story and starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube as the main characters. The story is about a man who has a girlfriend, but does not really get along with her brother. The man himself is an officer, but already struggles with keeping a handful of students under control while his soon-to-be brother-in-law is a tough and very successful cop. The film is listed on IMDb with several genres, but I cannot take it seriously as anything other than an action comedy. The dramatic elements are there, but they get entirely destroyed by the ridiculous crime story in here. Of course, that would not be a problem if the film didn't take itself seriously from the crime genre perspective on some occasions. But it does and it is painful to watch. Action genre I don't care too much about, but I guess it was okay from that perspective. Now about the comedy, it was not all bad, there was one scene when they were talking about the phone in the police car and the woman just won't understand Hart's character's message to her. That was kinda funny I guess. But most of the other humor is not really that great. Or at least it is not sufficient in quality and quantity for a 100-minute film.Most of it relies on parallels between the two characters. We see one character be in a dangerous undercover mission early on, another plays a video game that is about police and crime. Or on another occasions, one questions a criminal, the other questions a child. Stuff like that. In general, a lot of the action are dialogs that take place between the two protagonists in the police car. I guess they did it to save a little money there, but it may have been too many scenes there. It got a bit repetitive, even if the funniest scene, the one I mentioned earlier, takes place there too. The film's biggest weakness is the script. And again 5 people or so were working on it, which is a complete mystery to me. They can't all be that bad. The fact that the entire thing was so predictable was far from the movie's biggest problem. It was just a failed attempt in most areas regardless what you think of, apart from being entirely unrealistic of course. And still, I guess the film was commercially successful enough to motivate everybody (including director, producers and lead actors) for a second movie as this one came out very recently. And surprise, surprise, it is even less successful in terms of critical reception than this very mediocre first. I honestly have no interest checking out the sequel anytime soon. This first film here occasionally reminded me of a weak version of some older cop movie starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte(?). Do not watch "Ride Along". Thumbs down.

The idea of doing a comic take on the serious drama "Training Day" may sound strange at first, but they say there are no bad ideas, just bad execution of ideas. While "Ride Along" isn't a bad comedy, at its best it is just mildly amusing. I think a big reason why it isn't funnier than it is is due to the screenplay being very predictable. Once you know the premise of the movie, you can pretty much predict what is going to happen some time before it actually does. The screenplay (written by FOUR screenwriters!) should have been wilder in both its humor and with the plot. But as I said, there are still some amusing moments here and there. What really does keep the movie afloat are the performances by the two leads, Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. They both give very appealing performances and show that they are up to the challenge of whatever the screenplay and direction could throw at them. It's a pity, though, that they weren't given much material that was more biting in nature.

First off, this movie was fine. Nothing amazing, nothing awful It was a fine movie. Except, it reminded me A LOT of the heat. Which was a GREAT comedy. This movie was much less funny IMO, of course it had Kevin Hart who I think is HILARIOUS. Also, the woman (who's name I do not know) I think was great as well, Ice cube had his moments but really I found unlikable which I believe was what his goal was, to be the fierce BAMF. this movie was okay, if you're looking for a good midnight movie to watch and you already have seen the heat, watch this. But go in with an open mind. I thought it did it's purpose. OFFICIAL REVIEW : Acting wise - 8/10 (for the movie it did 10/10 it did it's purpose it wasn't made to be an Oscar winner. Plot wise - 9.5/10 (very good plot, not a 10 because heat had a similar plot.) Script wise - 5/10 (it has many funny parts but still came out nothing incredible) Final - 7/10 I didn't do the math but I rounded it to a 7/10. See the Heat THEN this.