
An inert buddy cop action comedy that induces more sighs than hilarity, Ride Along tries to wring laughs from an attempt to curry favor with a future in-law, but only manages to serve as a showcase for what 50 percent effort and even less imagination looks like. In a movie full of exasperating missteps given the talent involved, it’s perhaps most frustrating that, even though its story is admittedly rather lazily built around the accepted public personas of its two stars (Ice Cube‘s glowering and Kevin Hart’s voluble nattering), no one involved can figure out how to put an interesting twist on that formula or even just remain true to the characters they establish. For the full, original review, from Screen Daily, click here. (Universal, PG-13, 99 minutes)