Directed By Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Starring – Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens

The Plot – When their former captain (Joe Pantoliano) is implicated in corruption, two Miami police officers (Smith and Lawrence) have to work to clear his name.

Rated R for strong violence, adult language throughout and some sexual references

BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE – Official Trailer (HD) (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Unsurprisingly, Smith and Lawrence’s dynamic in chemistry is still the pressure that molds the diamond within this respected franchise, maintaining an unfiltered energy between them that is a constant pleasure to experience, despite the material not always doing them favors. Despite this, the dazzling duo are as infectiously rampant as ever, with an exuberant bond that transcends the fictional encompassing, all the while offering a refreshing change of pace for the direction of each character, as a result of an untimely first act trauma that sets the pace for the rest of the film. For Smith’s Mike, it retracts from being the cool, calm and collected hot shot that we’ve come to know him by, in favor of a richly defined maturity that now serves as the voice of reason for the group, while Lawrence’s Marcus goes from being the tightly-wounded veteran to care-free fearless exhilarant that makes the character feel twenty years younger, all while balancing a radiance of respect and admiration for one another that proves, above all else, that each of them is having a blast in the role. In addition to these characterization changes, the script also dabbles in themes pertaining to mortality that are especially effective in continuing the kind of vulnerability between the duo that wasn’t attained until the previous installment, making so many of the film’s already intensely encompassing action sequences all the more appealing when you consider the risks and consequences that constantly play to the minds of our protagonists. Because Mike and Marcus are now on the back half of their storied careers, it results in their coming to terms with realities that force them to attack conflicts with greater elements of responsibility and reflection, creating a deeper sense of consciousness to the design of the characters that feel lived in with the kind of relatability that inscribes such meaningful humanity. The script also cements justification in the fourth chapter of this now thirty year franchise with a connective tissue to previous installments that far exceeds just topical or thematic mentions. In particular, ‘Bad Boys II’ and the prematurely named ‘Bad Boys For Life’ are brought back into frame and focus to appraise relevance to the conflict before us, making the four films between three directors and seven different writers feel like one long-term conceived vehicle that has been planned since the initial 1995 installment. On the subject of two of those three aforementioned directors, the team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are another appreciated duo to the film’s integrity that has helped breathe new life into the lifespan of this series, particularly in the fun and destructive tendencies of the action set pieces, which even still continue to reinvent themselves. To be fair, the backdrops and sets themselves are fine enough, drifting in and out of the vibrant nightlife of Miami’s underworld, but the appreciation goes more to the ways they’re cleverly and concisely depicted, with elements of experimental cinematography and editing reaching radiant levels of full-fledged exhilaration for the interpretation. Between varying degrees of depiction in everything from first-person, to side-winding, to even personal affect, as well as rampantly riveting cuts between overblown devastation, the film surmises edge-of-your-seat entertainment that never grows tedious or redundant by the directing duo’s dependency on it, instead serving as the exclamation point to their irreplaceable impact to the franchise, who somehow filled the immense shoes of Michael Bay in the 90’s, when the visionary was at his highest power. Lastly, while ‘Bad Boys Ride or Die’ does contain a bit too many supporting characters, as a result of four films of continuity stretched across thirty years of filmmaking, the script does offer ample opportunity for each of them to shine, especially Dennis Greene, who some ‘Bad Boys II’ enthusiasts might remember as Reggie, the overgrown adolescent who asks to take out Marcus’ daughter. With very little words to his favor, Greene instead exerts physical capacities that halts the storytelling directly in its tracks, but in the best kind of ways possible, with scene-stealing sentiments that honestly make me wish I was watching a movie of his own in an extended universe, somewhere off in the distance.

NEGATIVES

While the script gets a lot right about conjuring permanent impact and lasting memory to the impact of the franchise, some underwhelming decision-making results in strange decisions that make this the shark-jumping instance that most prolonged series face with depicting the same characters. In this instance, the decision to depict a subconscious world in the minds of its protagonists feels a bit unnatural in the consistency and depths of this once gritty action franchise, with corny imagery and sentiments that made me groan throughout a framing device full of familiarities from sitcoms that attempt the same feat. It gets even worse with a third act development that quite literally comes out of nowhere, with a mythical creature (Yes, you heard that right) straight out of the ‘Lake Placid’ universe that somehow gets imbedded directly in the middle of this movie, all as a means of a meaningful pay-off, I guess? Strange creative liberties aren’t the only problem that the script faces, as its opening act and corresponding scenes took a little longer than I would’ve preferred at garnering momentum, and the movie’s villain is a huge step backwards from ‘Bad Boys For Life’ having the best of the franchise, with little in the way of development or meaningful motivation to fuel his unsettling actions. It’s certainly not Eric Dane’s fault, who is doing the best he can with what little is given to him, but rather the general outline as a hole, which feels stock, even for a film that has struggled with them, missing only him being a foreigner to hit five in a row on my conventional villain bingo card. Another problem pertaining to Dane’s antagonist, as well as the film’s hinderance, is a weak element to the movie’s mystery, which is given so much speculative emphasis that I expected something ground-shaking to its big reveal, but instead got the only answer that it quite literally could’ve been. Considering the film unloads so many clues in the backstory of this elusive figure that funds the framing of Mike and Marcus’ rested police chief, as well as the obviousness in one particular casting choice, I was able to sniff out quite easily and early who was the puppeteer who was continuously pulling all of the strings, and as a result I waited impatiently for the movie to catch-up, while everyone else within this world ignorantly ignored key aspects of the investigation that could only come from one person. Finally, it comes with much displeasure that this is one of composer Lorne Balfe’s weakest series of compositions to date, especially when corresponding throughout the aforementioned intense action set pieces, that should’ve blown the roof off of the proceedings, but instead underscored the imagery with themes that felt a bit too repetitive to eventually catch on. Considering I am a huge fan of Balfe’s, his inability here to add something tangibly endearing and unique to anything previously conceived is most unfortunate, and in a collective score with so much stock in consistency, alludes to the fact that literally anyone could’ve been behind it.

OVERALL
‘Bad Boys Ride or Die’ is certainly the weakest installment to the Bad Boys franchise, but one that benefits greatly from the still infectious chemistry from Smith and Lawrence, who help to take the characters and their world-building in new directions, for better or worse. With intensely enveloping action set pieces conveying versatility in their capture and construct, the film keeps audiences invested throughout a predictably bland mystery and questionable shark-jumping developments that reaches for a lot while attaining so little, resulting in a near misfire for a thirty year franchise that is starting to feel the wear of its age.

My Grade: 6/10 or C+