It can be rare that a long lasting franchise can continue to put out banger movies after almost 20 years between movies. Actors getting older, becoming kind of a nostalgia bait, as well as without falling too much into the negative trappings of the modern action movie. Some how the Bad Boys movie franchise continues to do it to this day. Almost 30 years old, Bad Boys is a bit of a weird franchise that continues to thrive to this day. What I mean by weird, I mean it’s kind of rare for there to be a franchise with such long breaks between continuous movies. The first movie came out all the way back in 1995, and we are just getting the 4th movie now. The other crazy thing about it, is that it’s a franchise that has changed directors and still kept a consistent amount of quality throughout, even all this time later. This all leads to the newest movie in the franchise, Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Bad Boys: Ride or Die is an American buddy cop comedy action movie. The movie was directed by Director duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, from a screenplay by Chris Bremner, Will Beall, and George Gallo. It stars Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Venessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Libra, Tasha Smith, and Rhea Seehorn. “After their late former Captain is framed, Lowrey and Burnett try to clear his name, only to end up on the run themselves.” (synopsis from Letterboxed).
I’ll start off by saying that this movie is a ton of fun. I know it’s weird that this is the first Bad Boys movie that I have reviewed, but that’s how these things work with me sometimes. It has a classic style of comedy that is seen in the other movies but still works fore the most part for me. A lot of the humour comes from Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), which is typical for the franchise but the type of humour they have him doing is a bit different than from what he has done in the other movies. Although it does keep the running idea of something happening to him and his reactions to it bringing the comedy. As well as how Mike Lowry (Will Smith) responds and reacts to Burnett’s shenanigans. So much of what makes this movie as good as it is are the characters. They have a lot of great interactions but also have a lot of interesting stuff to do. You have the age and lifestyles of the main characters catching up with them, the building of the relationship between Mike and his son Armando (Jacob Scipio), seeing a different side of Armando than we saw in Bad Boys For Life (2020). We get to see the titular Bad Boys be in a different mode than we’ve seen in the past, seeing them on the run makes for an interesting part of the movie. There’s some interesting implications in this movie that are introduced, they could just be hallucinations but it does make me ask some questions. Especially as there are things that happen in them that are seen later in the movie. I’m not going to talk about it much longer as I don’t want to spoil anything. The performances all work well for the characters the actors are playing. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence continue to be great in these roles, especially with the different things these characters go through this movie.
The stand out parts for me about this movie are the action and the cinematography. The action is all done so well, any fight scenes are not over edited or hiding anything. The action works together wth the cinematography and camera stuff so well that they make up for any faults the movie may have. You can tell that the directors and cinematographer all got super creative with what they do in this movie. From the elevator scene, to the use of drones, to that first person segment, to that part that everyone is talking about, are all great. It makes it so much fun to watch.
I do have a few issues with the movie. One of them is that the movie is kind of formulaic and doesn’t play with the formula much to differentiate itself. The villains are pretty lacklustre, the main physical bad guy is pretty generic in motivation and in what he does throughout. If he had time with Armando or more time with Mike maybe he would have been better but still. Maybe if he was given more of an interesting personality it would be better. The other main bad guy is a bit better as he has more of a connection to the characters and works well for what he is to make you hate him. But other than that he doesn’t do much either. My other main issue is that I feel like they didn’t really make a good enough change in the main characters of Mike and Marcus. They go through all this stuff that should have had more of a noticeable affect on them by the end of the movie, but to me it feels like they don’t.
Over-all I think this was a great addition to this relatively popular franchise. It’s a fun movie with great and creative action. It has some issues, but they don’t make the movie any worse to me. I give it two thumbs up !! I recommend seeing it in person in the theatres if you’re looking for a fun time out.
Andy's Thoughts 