Life goes on, but two constants remain in Miami police detectives Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence). Mike is still piecing his life together after the discovery of his son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), now serving prison time for the deaths of many key Miami figures involved in the imprisonment of his mother, including the beloved Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano). He’s found love at least in the form of his therapist now-turned-wife, Christine (Melanie Liburd). As for Marcus, he’s taken on a philosophical(esque) approach, living life to the fullest and reckless after suffering a heart attack.

The longtime duo go into attack mode when news comes out tying Captain Howard to corruption with the cartel, knocking on every door possible to clear his name. Very quickly however, they’re forced to go on the defense, tagged as fugitives. With even their AMMO allies Rita (Paola Núñez), Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) potentially in the web of corruption, there aren’t many these two can trust.

Who would have predicted at the start of the year that the real start to the moviegoing summer Memorial Day and on would be ushered in by a post-Oscars slap Smith and a well-past-his-famous-peak Lawrence in another Bad Boys installment? Yet here we are, to the tune of 56 million over its opening weekend. There’s not too much separating this franchise now from, say, Fast and Furious, but the ever-so-slight tweak in characterization and age acknowledgement beginning with 2020’s Bad Boys for Life has gone a sizable way in giving these a smidge of substance with a heavy serving of Bayhem…errr, mayhem.

Directing the mayhem again in this franchise are filmmakers Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi. They take inspiration—albeit on a smaller scale—from previous series director Michael Bay, with obvious visual callbacks to Bay-style slo-mo shots and refreshes of prior series’ moments. Flourishes of John Wick: Chapter 4 (it’s a rousing scene better left unspoiled) and Justin Lin/James Wan-directed F&F action can be found too, but the duo put their own spin on a few set pieces using unorthodox drone angles and toggling of the first person perspective, peaking with a final act shootout in a deserted amusement park that far supersedes the third act of the previous movie. The only decisions that stick out like oddities visually are scenes putting our buddy cops in a brief, ancestral farplane-like environment. The choice is a bold and different one, but one which feels like it belongs in a different movie.

I can’t remember the last time an action/comedy/crime film having thread lines of corruption in its story managed to surprise me with a reveal of who is actually dirty, and that sentiment carries over to Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Co-written by Chris Bremmer and Will Beall, once this feature moves away from its slower start and introduces the corruption angle, it’s way too easy to sniff out who is the wolf in sheep’s clothing, especially when paired with a cookie-cutter villain. On the positive side, Ride or Die manages to pull off a near-perfect face turn for Armando, something that seemed impossible to execute after the end of For Life. And the movie smartly continues to lean into the elder statesmen angle, if not grounding the situations Mike and Marcus find themselves in (yes, one scene flies too close to the orbit of Fast & Furious), then grounding Mike and Marcus themselves with simple things like high cholesterol, panic attacks, and general midlife crises. May sound bizarre, but it’s a cool flip to see the normally brazen Mike lose his boldness while the traditionally cautious Marcus gains more carelessness as he’s convinced he can’t die.

It’s an obvious assessment, but the electric banter between Smith and Lawrence remains elite. However, this outing does possess a different energy than the preceding one, and that’s because in many ways Lawrence comes off as less of a sidekick in this one and more of an equal and even alpha in spots. He drives many of the movie’s big laughs through a combination of acute delivery and facial elasticity. Who knew something as simple as pining for a gas station hot dog could be so hilarious? Unrelated, but who knew that the Reggie joke (and actor!) would have so much juice and an actually satisfying payoff? Hudgens, Dorn, Núñez, and Scipio form a pleasant F&F-lite style family, all playing off of the dominant energies of Lawrence and Smith.

Overcoming less than ideal market conditions, Bad Boys: Ride or Die ends up being a really solid, crowd pleasing, summer blockbuster, and ends in a satisfying way that could serve as a bow-topper for the franchise, or at least the Mike and Marcus phase of it. But until these dudes officially hit senior citizen status, I think they can still pass well enough for bad boys as long as they want to.

B-

Photo credits go to deadline.com, impawards, screenrant.com, and forbes.com.

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