TFG1MIKE 365 – 2026 Day 138 – BAD BOYS II: LIMITED EDITION (2-CD SET) Album Review!

BAD BOYS II: LIMITED EDITION (2-CD SET) – Album Review!

Music By: Trevor Rabin

Hello all and welcome to a NEW Daily Blog series from me… TFG1Mike! The idea here is for me to write something, anything, once a day for 365 days. From January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026. In my 138th entry of 2026, I’ll be talking about the film score to Bad Boys II! This is the Limited Edition 2-CD Set!

La La Land Records released this 0n March 2, 2026, and I can’t believe it has taken me this long to get to it. I was 23 years old when Bad Boys II was released in theaters in 2003, and I was sooooo stoked that Marcus and Mike were back on the big screen. I remember seeing this film in theaters at least three times back then in 2003!!!!! Since starting this write up, I’ve watched the film more times in 2026, than I have in the past twenty three years since its release! Even though this was published in May, I’m writing it in July 2026… Yes I know, I’m late, I’m late!!

And so now with all that outta the way…. let’s get into this, shall we?!

There are 49 total tracks on this 2 CD Set. With a total album time of 2:15:29, you are gonna have a blast listening to this score!

Twenty Three Years later BAD BOYS II is still an amazing sequel in my eyes! The film adds to the first one in so many ways. I started the film, and I immediately thought, “HEY another Marcus and Mike adventure” As much as I love Mark Mancina’s score in the first film Trevor Rabin takes over the musical reigns here. Mr. Rabin at this point in his soundtrack career had already done soundtracks such as Fair Game, Con Air, Armageddon, Enemy Of The State (with Harry Gregson-Williams), Jack Frost, Gone In 60 Seconds, Remember The Titans, The 6th Day, The One, Bad Company, and more! Most of those films are released in the same year! Armageddon, Enemy Of The State, and Jack Frost were all released in 1998. So you get my point.

The music is BADDER THAN BAD BOYS. So let’s get into that shall we?

Disc 1 has 27 tracks and is 97% of the score presentation. Disc 2 has 22 tracks and the first 4 tracks are the other 3% of the score presentation. The rest of Disc 2 are Bonus Tracks, and most of these are alternate versions of the score presentation tracks. I’m gonna highlight some of my favorite tracks off the album here and discuss why I love this score so much. The funny thing about my CONSTANT REWATCHING of BAD BOYS II in 2026 and listening to this score is that when writing up this review, I started at the end of the story.

I NEVER do that. OK I DO REWATCH stuff, but not as often as you’d think, and mostly for podcast purposes. The part I NEVER do is the rewatching 6 or 7 times, just to rewatch it. After the 2 time I watched BAD BOYS II in order to write up this review, I was all set. I had everything in my brain as the score was blaring in my ears.

Track 1: “Xtreme Machine***“: I love this opening track, it sets everything up so well. It pulls you into the world, it feels like you are at a Miami nightclub, even though they are making the drugs for Johnny to start the film. That aside, I still love the opening theme!!! It has everything you want a Bad Boys film to open with musically.

Track 2: “Swamp – KKK++“: Well well well, what do we have here? This scene was so crazy. From the 2 minute mark to around the 3 minute 4 second mark, that’s where my enjoym ent of the music is for this track. It has this awesome drumbeat feeling to it. And it’s that moment in the scene where the tension is building to an all time high. It’s an amazing piece of music!

Track 22: “Train Fight”: DAMN. JUST, DAMN!!!!! Again great action scene film music, and as I’ve said, and will repeat, I love TREVOR RABIN’s style of making music. I love the sound he crafts!!

Track 23: “Bad Boys For Life”: After that train sequence this just hits so much harder, and the emotions ahhhh!!!!!

Track 24: “Mortuary Sneak”: And then…… we get here! Oohhh boy! This track has some strange sounds at the beginning, but it ramps up as we go. When I say strange sounds, I mean that it allows the instruments to give a sneaky sound, before we get to the action. It works so well with the scene, and having just watched the film again for the 6th time… this tune is very fresh in my mind. From 1:04 to 1:24 that is where I am most into the scene and the music cue.

Track 25: “Escape Mortuary°“: And now the escape. The beginning of this cool, and it stays fresh until it gets to the action point around the 1:20 mark. Right before that timestamp, you have the ending of a very cool tone, and then the action of the drums and the escape notes kick in!

Track 26: “Syd’s Cover Is Blown”: You wanna talk about a scene? Right here!!! This scene with Syd’s cover being blown… The way Mr. Rabin crafted the tune for this, wowzers… The sound scape for this is just superb!! It highlights every section of the scene, as it should. However it does way more than that. It enhances the story, as I’m listening to just the music, in my mind and in my ears, I can hear the entire scene play out…. Gunfire and everything! From 4:03 to pretty much the end of the track, I love the entirety of Trevor Rabin’s creation there. The reason for that is because that is the CHASE music, and that is what ROCKS about this movie and it’s score!

Track 29: “Tapia Attack§§“: I love this track, because listening to it outside the film, as always, gives me even more appreciation of it inside the film. I hear every part of the scene in this music. Every section, every gunshot… every footstep the characters in the film take. The trying to find the guards playing soccer with the RC car, the blowing up of the tower… them searching for Syd… I hear everything in this track! And then the uppers and lowers in the middle of the track for when the army was everywhere, after which they find THE HUMMER!!! LOVE It! In these nine minutes and three seconds there is just so much, and that’s a good thing!!!!

Track 30: “Cuba Chase (Score Presentation)”: And here we go! Through the drug houses, down the hills! THE HUMMER WILL BE COMIN’ ATTCHA!!!! Chasin’ bad ole Johnny Tapia, and getting some slick tunes as we go…. the back beats in this track are awesome. I love when Trevor Rabin uses sounds like the ones he does here. His chase music is just epic! Around the 2:21 mark the music reverses direction though and it downshifts into these drums that are just as kick ass as the music was before. After the drums come in, he adds this violin, and it shifts the mood completely. This ids why I love Mr. Rabin’s style so much. Within the three minute and 22 second song he has given us three to six different styles of music that fit the film scene as you watch the film, and when you listen to the music outside the film… each musical style brings you to a new location in your listening enjoyment!

Track 31: “Guantanamo (Score Presentation)”: FINALE!! The two things I remember about this musical cue are the very beginning when the music starts and when Syd throws the gun at the mine in front of Johnny. I like the music here, and I think it’s an awesome tune for the finale, I just don’t have much to say about it.

Here is the guide to the notations next to the tracks for the score:

* Written by Steve Jablonsky
** Written by Mark Mancina
*** Written by Paul Linford
+ Written by Harry Gregson-Williams
++ Written by Trevor Rabin & Mark Mancina
+++ Written by Mark Mancina, Steve Jablonsky & Trevor Rabin
° Written by Steve Jablonsky, Mark Mancina, Tim Heintz & Trevor Rabin
°° Written by Trevor Rabin, Steve Jablonsky & Tim Heintz
°°° Written by Trevor Rabin & Paul Linford § Written by Heitor Pereira
§§ Contains an Interpolation of “Theme From Bad Boys” Written by Mark
Mancina

Final Thoughts: BAD BOYS II, it is an absolutely fun ride of a score! As I’ve said before, TREVOR RABIN is a composter I absolutely love. Every time I see his name come up on a film, I pay attention! Just go back up to the highlights I gave at the beginning of this review of trhe scores he has done! BAD BOYS II is a score I will have on rotation for a long time to come! There are even some tracks that I have taken out of the score and thrown them into my “FAVES” playlist on Spotify!

If you are a film score fan and you are a BAD BOYS fan, you’ll wanna add this to your collection any way you can! Right now you can do that right HERE! Or GET THE BUNDLE! That’s right BAD BOYS AND BAD BOYS II together! Only on The LaLa Land Records website!

We have brought back The GCRN Universal Ratings System in a BRAND NEW BRANDING!!! It’s The GCRN GEEK METER! And my rating for this CD soundtrack release is:

Join me next time when I’ll be writing about something! <— I’ve stopped putting tomorrow or the dates here, because I dunno if I’m gonna write the next day or not. I’ve WANTED to write more this year but, things just are a bit too overwhelming! However the year ain’t over yet… And I’m tryin’ mah best!