Bad Boys: Ride or Die
The cartoon violence and feeble repartee continues apace in the fourth instalment of the Bad Boys trilogy.
Nothin' but trouble: Martin Lawrence and Will Smith
Photo Credit: Frank Masi, Courtesy of Sony Pictures
They’re not really boys any more, but they’re still bad to the bone. And thanks to the machinations of a ruthless, cold-blooded gangster (Eric Dane), they are now being hunted down by their own police department – along with every gun-toting mercenary in Miami. The main difference here from Bad Boys for Life (2020), which was allegedly the final chapter in the Bad Boys trilogy, is that Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) is now a married man, having wed his English physical therapist, Christine (Melanie Liburd). This, of course, now makes him more vulnerable. Meanwhile, his partner and soul mate Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) suffers a heart attack at Mike and Christine’s wedding, followed by an out-of-body experience. Marcus now thinks he is invincible, which makes him an ever more dangerous member of the Miami PD...
The Belgian duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are back in the directors’ chair, although the template still belongs to Jerry Bruckheimer, which means the sequel is as mechanical, violent, blasphemous, inevitable and overblown as one might have feared. There's corruption in high places, although the rat is visible a mile off, just as is his predictable demise. There’s a striking number of female authority figures, but as each one could pass for a supermodel, it hardly blunts the series’ sexism. However, it’s the rat-a-tat profanity that really becomes wearisome, losing any sense of meaning after the first few mouthfuls of motherf*****s. In the public consciousness, Will Smith is a real bad boy now and the habitual profanity here is unlikely to cleanse his copybook.
The endless shoot-outs and (fleeting) scenes of torture are punctuated with the mandatory badinage between Mike and Marcus, which has all the sophistication of a ketamine-fuelled exchange between two twelve-year-olds. The whole thing feels like an AI-generated homage to the worst excesses of the MTV generation of action movie which can but give testosterone a bad name. Martin Lawrence turns sixty next year, so maybe he should quit while he’s ahead. Yet, tragically, the last movie grossed $426.5 million.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, Tasha Smith, Rhea Seehorn, Tiffany Haddish, Joe Pantoliano, Quinn Hemphill, DJ Khaled, John Salley, Dennis Greene, Michael Bay.
Dir Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Pro Jerry Bruckheimer, Will Smith, Chad Oman and Doug Belgrad, Ex Pro Martin Lawrence, Screenplay Chris Bremner and Will Beall, Ph Robrecht Heyvaert, Pro Des Jon Billington, Ed Asaf Eisenberg and Dan Lebental, Music Lorne Balfe, Costumes Janie Bryant, Sound David Esparza and David Werntz.
Columbia Pictures/Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films/Westbrook Studios/2.0 Entertainment-Sony Pictures.
115 mins. USA. 2024. UK Rel: 5 June 2024. US Rel: 7 June 2024. Cert. 15.
