run time: 100 mins
rated: PG
considered: Action, Comedy
starring: Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Tika Sumpter, John Leguizamo, Bruce McGill, Gary Owen
movie summary: Kevin Hart is Ben Barber, a call of duty playing high school security guard who wants to become a cop. His beautiful girlfriend Angela (Tika Sumpter) supports his dreams even though her cop brother James (Ice Cube) disapproves of their relationship. James is a tough as nails detective who has been chasing Atlanta’s most famous criminal Omar (Laurence Fishburne) for several years, and doesn’t think Ben is man enough to be with his sister.
The soon to be brother in-laws meet and Ben tries to impress James but to no avail. James thinks it’s funny that Ben just got accepted to the police academy and knows he won’t cut it, so invites him on a ride along. At the station, James tells dispatch that he has a rookie tagging along and to send him all the 126’s (annoying situations) to make Ben’s day a living hell. Their first call involved a biker gang, next call was at a playground, and their final call involved a streaker in the mall. At this point of the day Ben’s spirit has been crushed and he begins to think he can’t handle the job so he just wants to go home.
On the way back the duo take one more call which turns into a real gun fight at a strip club. After saving the day, Ben discovers a clue that involves the mysterious Omar guy that James has been searching for. In his final attempt to prove his manhood, Ben convinces James to let him help on the case, so they follow-up the new lead to a gun exchange between Omar’s men. When the exchange goes bad, the pair must use their cop and video game playing knowledge to survive the bullets and catch the real Omar, wherever he may be.
my thoughts: I was skeptical about watching Ride Along even with funny man Kevin Hart in it. This movie is tailored to a certain audience so not everyone is going to laugh and think it’s an amazing film. I enjoyed the first half of the movie where Hart is at his best being funny, loud, and dramatic but the tone changes and the humor takes a backseat to the crime fighting. The action itself is very minimal and nowhere near the blockbuster style everyone would expect from a Stallone film, but would want in a buddy cop movie.
If anyone wants to go see Ride Along, I recommend going on a cheap day and not paying full price. This movie may have taken 1st overall at the box office this past weekend but that is only because nothing better opened and the holiday hold overs have been out for weeks now. This is the perfect kind of movie that will be a hit on Netflix someday, even though they have already started production on the sequel.
my star rating: 4 out 10
Ten Stars or Less 
Good review Ryan. It was okay for a couple of really hearty laughs. But that’s all.
It only sells out because of Kevin Hart. Sad to think this is already getting a sequel after four days.
😦
It gets a sequel, because people are greedy and see the money. Like you said, it was a success because they were smart enough to release it on a date where hardly anything else was playing. January usually is the month where unpromising movies get dumped to so they can make a little profit, like Devil’s Due, but even in that case most people were smart enough to avoid it! 😀