- Bad Boys: Ride or Die
- Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah
- Written by Chris Bremner and Will Beall
- Starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and Joe Pantoliano
- Classification 14A; 115 minutes
- Opens in theatres June 7
With its fourth instalment, the Bad Boys series has taken one giant, disappointing leap into becoming a second-tier imitation of the Fast & Furious franchise. Not only does Bad Boys: Ride or Die borrow Vin Diesel’s favourite marble-mouthed line of Dom Toretto dialogue as its very own subtitle, but the film also features so many of the typical F&F hallmarks that it seems one Dodge Charger away from airdropping a baby-oil-covered Dwayne Johnson into the proceedings to properly bridge cinematic universes.
Just like any F&F film worth its nitrous oxide, this new Bad Boys flick (which magnificently blew its chance to be called Bad Boys 4 Life by wasting that title on its third entry a few years ago) features a dastardly villain from a previous film who has now become a trusted ally. There is an overriding theme of trusting family above everyone else. And the whole affair is capped off by a giant backyard barbecue, albeit with Doritos and Skittles replacing F&F’s Corona as the product placement of choice.
The Miami-set series’ gradual transition into lesser-than action fare might not hurt so bad today had the first two Bad Boys films not been master classes in modern action cinema.
The original film, released back in 1995 as the sun began to set on the Stallone/Schwarzenegger/Willis era, brought a fresh and dizzying energy into the game, establishing not only two burning-bright stars in Will Smith and Martin Lawrence but also introducing director Michael Bay as a master of onscreen chaos. (It is wildly impressive, and a little bit scary, that the filmmaker made Bad Boys and The Rock just one year apart.) And the whole game was levelled up to ludicrously entertaining heights with Bay’s 2003 epic Bad Boys II, whose appetite for destruction has gone unmatched in the two decades-plus since.
Naturally, there had to be a come-down after Bay left the series and the powers-that-be at Sony Pictures decided that there was still good money to squeeze out of their precious Bad Boys. Yet the Belgian filmmaking duo of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (credited simply as Adil & Bilall) did a decent job both imitating and then gently torquing Bay’s consciously aggressive style with 2020′s third go-round. None of their efforts were truly necessary – and perhaps memories are tinged by the fact that the movie was the last big theatrical release before the pandemic hit – but sometimes all action fans need is half-price Miami Vice.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in Bad Boys: Ride or Die.Frank Masi/The Associated Press
It turns out that yesterday’s price is not today’s, though, as Ride or Die frequently feels ready to bust itself for aggravated cinematic assault.
Set a little while after the events of the third film, the new film finds odd-couple Miami cops Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) mostly living the good life. Mike is marrying the love of his life (regrettably not Gabrielle Union’s tough cop from the second film), Marcus has a grandson, and the pair can rest a little easy knowing that Mike’s illegitimate drug-lord son Armando (Jacob Scipio) is behind bars after the mayhem that he caused in the last movie. But then the officers’ dearly departed boss, Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano in flashbacks and one needlessly strange dream sequence), is framed for corruption, and the Bad Boys must recruit Armando to help clear Howard’s good name.
The plot’s believability is stretched to the point of emaciation, even for this series. The comedy, which arrives on cue every other scene, is pained. And the action is now a fully cribbed and inferior sizzle reel of Bay’s greatest hits. Whoever introduced Adil & Bilall to Bay’s eye-popping drone-camera work on the 2022 hoot Ambulance, for instance, needs to be themselves punted up in the air and shaken around 360 degrees, so annoyingly and haphazardly do the duo employ overhead swooping shots here. If Bay’s Bad Boys movies were – as producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s production-company logo emphasized – tectonic bursts of thunder and lightning, then Adil & Bilall’s are gentle white noise. (Bay himself seems to have given his tacit approval, though, making a quick cameo here just as he did in the third film.)
Still, there are a few flashes of fun. A helicopter hijacking spits in the face of physics. A mid-film sequence sets up (but never delivers) on the promise of a John Wick-ian tour of Miami’s warring neon-lit gangs. There is the deployment of a narrative device that I’ll dub Chekhov’s Albino Alligator. And then there is one swift, open-palm reference to Smith’s moment of Academy Awards infamy – a gag that unsteadily wobbles between being craven and brilliant. Or perhaps brilliantly craven.
Ultimately, this is an action series that now feels just about empty, running on the fumes of a legacy that once knew no brakes. Oh, my dear, sweet Bad Boys. Whatcha gonna do when they (audiences) no longer come for you? Whatcha possibly gonna do?