Martin Lawrence – Memphis Flyer

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

For the past few years it’s seemed as if Hollywood had been infected by a plague, and legacy media were the most susceptible. Movie screens and streaming libraries have been filled with reboots and continuations to stories that were either major successes in their heyday, or built cult followings which capitalists sought to seize. Every so often a new trailer or press junket would drop, teasing a new installment of some saga that would leave the audience wondering, “They still make that?” or “Did we ask for that?”

This phenomenon becomes even more of an enigma when certain franchises return after hitting the screens decades ago, since it can potentially alienate audiences who don’t fully understand the lore. However, Bad Boys: Ride Or Die is an exception, leaving the viewer either satiated as a longtime fan or eager to start from the beginning.

The movie serves as the fourth installment of the series. Like the last film, the pandemic-era Bad Boys for Life, original director Michael Bay is replaced by Belgian directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, with a story by Chris Bremner, Aquaman scribe Will Beall, and George Gallo. Reprising roles they originated in 1995 are stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, along with supporting actors Paola Nüñez and Jacob Muntaz Scipio, with Eric Dane. New to the franchise are Better Call Saul standout Rhea Seehorn and Ioan Gruffudd.

The film opens with the titular pair Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) in another one of their iconic car chases. Both men appear dapper and on a time crunch as their latest mission —Mike’s wedding to his former physical therapist Christine (Melanie Liburd) — brings a new sense of urgency. But en route to the nuptials, Marcus asks to stop at the gas station for a ginger ale, much to Mike’s dismay. Marcus’ junk food addiction gets the best of him, and as he piles his order onto the counter, he finds himself at gunpoint in a gas station robbery.

Within seconds, the pair annihilate the assailant, and Mike makes it to the church on time. As the couple is pronounced husband and wife, we see the wedding party joined with a memorial photo of Captain Conrad Howard, who died in Bad Boys for Life while trying to take down a Miami drug cartel.

At the reception are Rita Secada (Núñez), as well as Howard’s daughter Judy (Seehorn) and granddaughter Callie (Quinn Hemphill). But the celebration is cut short as Marcus’ diet of sweet garbage finally catches up with him, and he suffers a heart attack. As he’s rushed to the ER, Marcus hallucinates Howard’s ghost, who informs him that it’s not his time to go. Marcus awakens with a new lease on life.

That ghost seems to be busy. As Marcus is recovering, city officials are notified that Howard is seemingly committing fraud from beyond the grave. Mike and Marcus, forever indebted to Howard, take on the mission to clear their late captain’s name.

Their first stop is the prison where Mike’s son Armando (Scipio) is being held, as he’s been convicted of Howard’s murder. Armando believes he can identify the real perpetrator, but as word spreads through the prison, he finds himself the target of a deadly attack in the yard. With his safety at risk, he’s moved to Miami. But his transfer helicopter becomes a target for the cartels, and our heroes miss death by an inch in the ensuing crash. Mike, Marcus, and Armando continue their mission as fugitives.

With the help of Advanced Miami Metro Operations agents Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) and Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), they not only uncover the mastermind of the hoax, but follow the trail of deception and forbidden alliances.

While it may be a part of the series, and the conclusion of a story Adil and Bilall began in the last film, first-time viewers needn’t worry about being confused. Longtime fans will be reminded as to why this pair works so well together in the buddy-cop genre. Thousands of slap-happy think pieces and unsolicited marriage tidbits later, Smith is still refreshing, and we’re reminded of why the camera loves him. Lawrence’s comedic legacy precedes him, and his impeccable delivery doesn’t disappoint. Both actors manage to balance out the comedic and action elements without doing too much.

The film ends on an open note, with the plot wrapped up, but no major cliffhangers. If there’s going to be a reboot, why not give Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator Amy Sherman-Palladino a shot? Bad Girls, anyone?

Bad Boys: Ride or Die
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The thing you need to know about Bad Boys for Life is that Michael Bay didn’t direct it.

It’s probably unseemly for a critic to carry such a grudge against a specific director, but in my defense, Bay did waste a lot of my time. And it’s not as if my low opinion of Mr. Bay’s abilities is a controversial stance. The intro to his Wikipedia page contains the line: “Despite his commercial success at the box office, Bay’s work is generally held in low esteem by film critics.”

Yeah, you could say that. The last Michael Bay movie I had to sit through was Transformers: The Last Knight, which was considered a failure because it only made $604 million. I considered it a failure because it didn’t make a damn lick of sense. Bay recently convinced Netflix to pony up for $150 million worth of ‘splody stuff for 6 Underground, but I’m not going to watch it due to my current self-care regimen.

Martin Lawrence (left) and Will Smith are in it for life in Bad Boys for Life.

Bay directed both the original 1995 Bad Boys and the 2003 sequel, which cast a pair of sitcom stars, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, in a kind of Miami Vice scenario, except they’re both Tubbs. The first film made the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air a bonafide movie star. It was that very peculiar ’80s sub-genre, the buddy cop action comedy. They were once ubiquitous, but the pitch seems weird now: What if Death Wish was funny? What if Dirty Harry had a wisecracking sidekick? The buddy cop thing was pioneered by Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte in 48 Hours, and then aped endlessly for 20 years. There were so many bad ones, but there was the occasional fun one, like Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines in Running Scared.

I said earlier that both Smith and Lawrence were Tubbs archetypes. That’s not entirely true. Smith’s Mike “Bulletproof” Lowrey is definitely Tubbs-like. He dresses, as Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett says late in Bad Boys for Life, like a drug dealer. He tears around Miami in a Porsche, and that’s where we meet him and Marcus for the first time in 17 years. Marcus is more like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, perpetually getting too old for this shit. Now, he really is getting too old for it. The reason they’re speeding through Miami with cops in hot pursuit is to get to the birth of Marcus’ grandson.

The opening chase is a pretty impressive piece of action filmmaking. Bad Boys was the creation of one of the most toxic duos in film history, Bay and super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The new directors, the Belgian duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah seem to have been given instructions by Bruckheimer to “make it like Mike.” This looks like a Bay movie, only better. I get the impression that Arbi and Fallah would shoot the entire thing in 1,000 fps slo-mo if they could, like when they pause the action for a loving, extended close-up of a molotov cocktail hitting a car. They’re not afraid to put a klieg light behind a slowly turning fan like it’s 1989 and this is a Madonna video. Bay’s signature wrap-around steadicam move appears a couple of times — the directors even use it to shoot Michael Bay’s cameo.

In Bay’s later career, what was even worse than his accidental chaos cinema was the contempt for the audience that dripped from his every putrid frame. It wasn’t just misogyny — although there was no shortage of that — it was the hatred that all of his characters had for each other, and the films had for them. Bad Boys for Life is still extremely violent (“Violence is what we do!” shouts Mike as he tries to get Marcus to break a vow of peace he made to God and mow some people down with a machine gun) and plenty misogynistic (the villain, Isabel Aretas [Kate del Castillo], is both a literal witch and Mike’s ex-girlfriend), but that bottomless pit of bile is thankfully missing.

It’s Smith and Lawrence that redeem this film, to the extent that it is redeemed. They’re both miraculously well-preserved, their chemistry is great, and Smith’s movie-star charisma is set to stun. Sure, they’re copping licks from John Wick, Mission Impossible, Fast & Furious, and Fury Road left and right, but they’re having a good time doing it. I guess it just goes to show you, everything’s better without Bay on it.