Exclusive transcript

Friday, July 18, 2003 » movies thought

Michael Bay's phone call proposing scenes for Bad Boys II (warning: may give away plot points, although they are completely inconsequential in this type of movie):

"Hello, this is Michael Bay. Yeah, I was just calling to toss out some ideas and some little subtleties necessary to my artistic vision. You know, like heads popping off corpses after they fly out the back of a van and are run over. But anyway, let's go down the checklist. First off, Henry Rollins. Did we sign Henry Rollins? OK, great. How about the Klan in the first action scene? They've been kind of underused lately. All right, I hear the slow-motion bullet-time-kinda stuff is hot right now. Can we add that in? Excellent. Probably we should throw in a quick rave scene, because I'm really hip and with it. Now, let's run through the first car chase. I want to have Will Smith driving fast. That was pretty successful the last time around. It was also pretty cool how he threw the barrels of ether at the car behind him, except I feel like I can top that. Let's have them throw cars instead. Yeah, you know. Off one of those car carriers. Will Smith can drive around them, in his fast car. Then Joe Pantoliano can reprise his role as the tough police captain. I really like it when he yells and acts all strung out. OK. Next I want a shootout with a bunch of Haitians. I am going to have the camera spinning around the room and through doors and windows a million times, while Will Smith shoots at people and Martin Lawrence is comedic. Then I want Will Smith to shoot someone in the eyeball through a door. OK. Chopped up guy in a bucket? Check. OK, we'll have the scene with the bodies falling out of the van about midway through. Oh, oh! And Dan Marino. Yeah. Maybe Will Smith can steal his car in order to chase the van. Also, I'd like to see someone get run over by a monorail. I don't think that's been done before. Hmm, what next... I know, Will Smith can pretend he's drunk and make fun of Martin Lawrence's daughter's date for like 15 minutes. Then I want them to go to a mortuary so we can show a dead woman with humongous breasts, and also Will Smith can rummage around inside of a bunch of dead people and it'll be incredibly disgusting. Oh, and the top of a guy's head will fall off. Then Martin Lawrence can take Ecstasy, and it'll be hilarious. OK, we're coming down to the last hour or so. Let's have a gigantic shootout at the drug lord's mansion, and then they can invade Cuba with a bunch of SWAT guys. I'd better make sure this can top all the action scenes in the movie so far, so I'll give everyone in sight automatic rifles and/or rocket launchers. Oh, and there will be iguanas. Yes, many of them. And the Cuban army. Then I want the big Cuban mansion to explode. Just completely vaporize it. Then Will Smith can drive a Hummer H2 through a shantytown. Hmm, maybe that's sort of cliché at this point. Oh! I know! It'll actually be full of cocaine manufacturers. That way everything will explode as he crashes through it. All right, only about 20 minutes of film left before it hits the three-hour mark, how to wrap this up... Ah, I've got it! Standoff in a minefield. Brilliant. And we'll end with the bad guy falling on a landmine and exploding in half. And hey, I want to clearly see that there are two pieces of him. Got it? Good. This movie is going to be so excessive that fights are going to break out in the theater on opening night. Mark my words."