Ride Along - Quicky Review!

If you've ever seen the Rush Hour series, you have a very good grounding in Ride Along. The buddy cop movie that features Kevin Hart (Ben Barber) as campus security for a college/high school budding for a job in the police to live his dream and marry his girlfriend (played by Tika Sumpter). Barber's girlfriend happens to be Ice Cube's (James Payton) sister who is in the midst of an investigation that he's poured all of his man hours into and is seeing little results from. To deserve Payton's respect as both a police rookie and his blessing of marriage, Barber must go on a ride along to prove his worth.

Comedy movies are genuinely hard for me to review. The obvious lack of attention to the story is normally bad in any other genre apart from certain action movies but Ride Along has a balance of a story (all be it predictable) laced with comedy. It was enough to engage for the majority but moments tried to initiate emotions that weren't compatible with the flow (real good time to run to the toilet if you drank to much). However, to actually progress the story did well at giving an ending, no matter how cheesy it was.

As one of Kevin Hart's stand out roles in which he is the main focus, he does fairly well. His comedy style can be widely accepted by many and when you act stupid and do nothing but talk on stage, it isn't very hard to get into character for Ben Barber. Ice Cube also didn't have far to go, going from gang banger to FBI agent in 21 Jump Street and now wild police officer doesn't stray to far from the line. With flashes of meme based comedy that heavily involves memes of himself blended with some of his tunes are a great homage to his work and how much he's changed. As much as he was type-cast, the past "cop-killer" attitude makes his presence that much funnier.

Before I conclude, I would just like to pick on the filming and editing. At points, the editing done to the scenes (primarily the title sequence) look horrible. The screen is far to filled with action to be screwed over by some cheap ass graphics thrown across them that look like they've come out of Microsoft Word 1998.

To conclude, the film was great fun. Although a bit risqué for a 12 rating in the UK, its comedy thrives off of the success of Rush Hour by mimicking the duo style (PS - Ride Along 2 has been announced.). A good cast, a decent plot that can be ruined within minutes of the movie and a movie that is built for pure enjoyment. I look forward to another instalment and give this a 7/10.