There's really only two ways to do a sequel. There's a continuing of story and deepening of character, etcetera, and there's the "more, more, more" of the same style. It should come as no surprise that this one takes the latter approach. Much like Statham's Transporter franchise, if you saw the first you know what to expect: a high energy, frenetic rampage of action, violence, and sex all over Los Angeles. It's absolutely ridiculous, utterly impossible, and totally stupid. But there's so very much of the "more, more, more" and it goes so outrageously over the top in every way that it also manages to be just as much fun, if not more so, than the original. Until about the one hour mark.
I honestly don't know what happened, maybe the dual directors felt a need to stretch it out a bit. Between one hour and one hour fifteen minutes in there are three, count 'em, THREE back-to-back destroyers of momentum. First we cut away, in the very middle of a chase scene no less, to an extremely long and unnecessarily cruel plot-stopping joke relating to the first movie. Then there's what I'm assuming was some sort of hallucination, wherein a fight scene is shown as silly, unfunny, giant Godzilla style versions of the characters fighting each other in a miniature set. And finally, we get a piece of momentum-killing back story on Chev Chelios, our main character, which appears to be set on a British talk show.
All this could have been cut out, leaving a movie of around an hour and twenty five minutes or so, that would have been an easy four stars. As is, if you really liked the first one, you'll probably dig most of this, but not all, I promise. If you didn't like the first, stay far, far away.
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