Martin Lawrence, left, and Will Smith in the film "Bad Boys II." (Gannett News Service). Bad Boys II Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union. Director: Michael Bay. Rated R: Strong violence and action, pervasive language, sexuality, drug content. Running time: 147 minutes. view the trailer | official website Miami narcotics detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett become part of a high-tech task force assigned to stem the flood of ecstasy into Miami. They uncover a deadly conspiracy involving a drug lord who is determined to expand his empire and take control of the city’s narcotics trade, killing anyone who stands in his way. To make matters worse, Marcus’ beautiful sister Syd, an undercover DEA agent, gets caught in the crossfire, forcing our heroes to the edge of the law. The assignment takes on further complications when romantic sparks start to fly between Mike and Syd, driving her overly protective brother completely around the bend.

by David Germain, Associated Press

Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay know they're going to get lousy reviews. We're happy to oblige them, not only for the damage "Bad Boys II" has done to our eardrums, but also because they've made a truly abominable movie.

Producer Bruckheimer and director Bay have sunk to a new low for irresponsible, inhuman violence, dragging Will Smith and Martin Lawrence along for a ghastly, deafening display of bloodshed.

It took the filmmakers eight years to follow up on the 1995 buddy-cop flick "Bad Boys," a solid but unspectacular box-office success that established TV stars Smith and Lawrence on the big screen.

Bay and Bruckheimer make up for lost time by padding the sequel to an excruciating 2˝-hour tempest of outlandish gunplay, explosions and car wrecks, punctuated by the occasional corpse falling from a mortuary vehicle and getting beheaded by rushing traffic.

The action borders on sickening. You expect morality and decency to go out the window in a big, dumb cop spectacle; you don't figure on the filmmakers reveling in barbarity. Yet Bay and Bruck­ heimer seem intent only on stack­ ing bodies higher than the Miami skyline.

The sole moment of reflection over the movie's murderous mayhem comes in the throwaway line, "Thank God no cops died," which follows a calamitous highway chase that in reality would have filled the city's funeral parlors and emergency rooms to overflowing.

As they ooh and aah at Bay and Bruckheimer's fireworks, even the most die-hard action fans simply have to shift uncomfortably over the atrocities they're watching. If not, American society is doomed.

Screenwriters Ron Shelton and Jerry Stahl, from a story by Shelton and Marianne and Cormac Wibberley, have fashioned the barest of plots about Miami cops and federal agents trying to bring down a ring of Cuban and Russian mobsters smuggling Ecstasy into Florida in floating coffins.

On the case again are trash-talking narcotics detectives Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence), along with newcomer Syd Burnett (Gabrielle Union), Marcus' DEA agent sister.

As a feeble concession to character development, the filmmakers toss in a romance between Mike and Syd that they hide from Marcus, who's considering dissolving his partnership with Mike.

Joe Pantoliano returns as the partners' police captain in a role so daft it comes off as awkward ad-lib­ bing.

The main villains - Peter Stormare as a Russian mob boss and Jordi Molla as a Cuban druglord - are ethnic caricatures. The difference is, Stormare can act, while Molla is laughably over-the-top.

There's really nothing to distinguish good guys from bad boys, beyond the fact the villains speak in outrageous accents while Smith and Lawrence get to crack wise while blowing things up or blowing people away.

No matter how smart-alecky and charismatic, any characters who could have this much fun savaging the world with bullets, bombs and cars are not worth anyone's time or money.