Bad Boys II

If you are after a comedy that actually makes you laugh out loud, Bad Boys II is available in Australia on Disney Plus and BINGE, and in the US on Hulu and fuboTV right now. The runtime earns every minute, with nothing here that feels like padding. With 6,003 viewer ratings on TMDB, this is not a title flying under the radar. Martin Lawrence's performance alone is worth the time investment. Put it on tonight on Disney Plus and see for yourself.

Part of the current wave of titles people are actually watching, Bad Boys II earns its spot. Bad Boys II gets the fundamentals right first, then finds room to get weird with it. Detectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey of the Miami Narcotics Task Force are tasked with stopping the flow of the drug Ecstasy into Miami. They track the drugs to the whacked-out Cuban drug lord Johnny Tapia, who is also involved in a bloody war with Russian and Haitian mobsters. If that isn't bad enough, there's tension between the two detectives when Marcus discovers that playboy Mike is secretly romancing Marcus’ sister, Syd. The chemistry Martin Lawrence and Will Smith bring to it does a lot of the heavy lifting. It was released in 2003. The real test of any comedy is whether it is still funny once you know all the jokes, and Bad Boys II holds up on rewatch in a way that separates it from one-off curiosities. It knows exactly what it is, and does not try to be anything else.

Bad Boys II is the kind of thing you put on in the background and end up fully watching. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. Best experienced as a single, sustained watch from start to finish. Martin Lawrence anchors an ensemble with real chemistry. Genuinely funny, consistently, across the whole run.