Movies

Bad Boys 2
Directed by Michael Bay
Sony, in release

T3 ain't got nothing on Mike (Will Smith), a Miami metrosexual cop with a slate-gray Porsche, a firm grip on his weapon, and luscious, moist caramel skin that gets more sparkling screen time than Gisele’s at the Victoria's Secret runway show. Bad Boys 2 plays like a flashy highlight reel from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City—bodies drop from trucks, club kids OD on ecstasy, Jamaican hoodlums with voluminous dreads hijack briefcases of cash. Martin Lawrence's Marcus is the Costello to Smith's Abbott, an unhinged wisecrackpot fresh out of New Age man therapy, with a hot sister (Gabrielle Union) who becomes a pawn for drug thugs and his manicured partner alike. The vicious circle culminates in a chase that concludes (where else?) on land-mine-strewn white sand bordering Gitmo, where soldiers point their guns at the assembled crowd long enough to potentially cause an Al Qaeda jailbreak. It's the ideal setup for Bad Boys 3: Threat Matrix, and the Fresh Prince's impending presidential run. He'll be back. —Jon Caramanica

Bugs!
Directed by Mike Slee
SK, opens July 25

This Terminix-sponsored, kid-geared IMAX 3-D diversion is pretty much what you'd expect—a glut of quotidian insect behavior explicated in perfectly rounded tones by Dame Judi Dench. As with the more glamorously photographed MicroCosmos, the climbing, scurrying, and munching eventually grows tiresome, but the film is not without its highlights: among them, a rhinoceros-beetle wrestling match; a softcore mantis sex scene ("He strokes the female's back with his antennae") concluding with the camera dipping behind a leaf to give the critters their privacy; and the downright poetic image of a dead butterfly's wings fluttering downward and landing in a stream. Because the camera necessarily remains still while photographing the insects, Bugs! has little of the swooping impact of most IMAX films. —Ben Kenigsberg