Bad Boys: Ride or Die Review
It’s the rare movie franchise that peaks with its fourth installment. But Bad Boys – the buddy-cop series starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as Miami narcotics detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett – is rare indeed. Its first three movies were released across a span of 25 years, and each one was a big hit. And they certainly didn’t follow the standard arc of sequel quality: 1995’s Bad Boys was followed by the terrible Bad Boys II in 2003; 17 years later, Bad Boys For Life delivered something more fun and engaging. And now, with Bad Boys: Ride or Die the exploits of Detectives Lowrey and Burnett have become something pretty great.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die isn’t doing anything groundbreaking with its story. This time out, Mike and Marcus are working to redeem the good name of their beloved Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano, returning via dream sequences and video recordings after his character was killed off in Bad Boys For Life). And while that quest sends the Bad Boys on the run, it also continues some of the more heightened, soap-opera-esque elements from the previous movie. At first, it seems like some of the major developments from Bad Boys For Life won’t matter here, what with the heavy focus on Mike and Marcus. But it turns out Chris Bremner and Will Beall’s script wisely keeps Lawrence and Smith in the driver’s seat before making room for those newer additions.
So yes, Mike and Marcus’ plight leads to them eventually needing help from Bad Boys For Life’s Rita (Paola Núñez), Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig). (Conspicuously absent: their co-star Charles Melton, who’s since ascended to prestige-movie acclaim thanks to last year’s May December.) The introduction of this team in the third film felt like a rather blatant attempt to expand the franchise à la Fast & Furious, and yet it still worked. That continues to be the case here, with some nice spotlight moments for this larger Team Bad Boys by the final act.
Also back is Mike’s Son-He-Never-Knew-Who-Grew-Up-Evil-And-Tried-To-Kill-Him-But-Now-Seeks-Redemption, Armando (Jacob Scipio). In a series that’s never had much in the way of emotional resonance, there’s actually some weight to the scenes between these characters in Ride or Die, as they attempt to move forward with some semblance of a father-son relationship. On the flip side, it’s good to see Bremner and Beall and directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah not ignoring what happened before, because lest we forget, it was Armando, during his evil days, who killed Captain Howard. That fact weighs heavily on the story, as we meet Howard’s daughter, played by Rhea Seehorn in a one-note role that’s a far cry from her amazing work as Kim Wexler on Better Call Saul. (It’s still fun to see her run around with a gun in a Bad Boys movie, though.)
For the second Bad Boys in a row, Smith is the dramatic rock. Mike still has plenty of good insults to throw at Marcus, but he’s mostly preoccupied by the situation with Armando. After nearly 30 years, Smith and Lawrence’s chemistry and their strong comedic energy together is well established, and the two continue to make for a great onscreen pairing. They’re in for a bit of role reversal in Ride or Die: Whereas Mike started the last sequel at death’s door, now it’s Marcus’ turn to dodge the Grim Reaper. This leads to some goofy yet frequently funny material: He walks away from a heart attack feeling immortal, which Lawrence embraces wholeheartedly, delivering laughs as Marcus tests his theory in increasingly dangerous ways.
But it’s El Abri and Fallah are the real stars of Ride or Die. The duo billed as Adil & Bilall did a great job with Bad Boys For Life, evoking the overblown, whirlwind style Michael Bay established in Bad Boys and Bad Boys II while expertly adding their own, somewhat looser flair. This time out, Adil & Bilall cut loose, beginning with the trippy visuals of Marcus’ near death experience.
The real stars of Bad Boys: Ride or Die are the directors.
Taking influence from animation and video games, their camera is in constant motion, careening back and forth as if it has a life of its own. One standout scene finds Mike and Marcus fighting for their lives on a small plane that’s in free fall: As the camera mimics their weightlessness, the duo fends off armed attackers and tries to stop some precious cargo from flying off the plane. Another fight is shot from outside of the glass elevator where it takes place, the camera hurtling around as we watch the occupants inside battle and smash the glass up.
It’s sequences like these that make it all the more frustrating that we’ll never see the Adil & Bilall-directed Batgirl movie that Warner Bros. shelved in 2022. They’re done with a ton of creativity and energy, never forgetting that Bad Boys is an action-comedy series – so there’s still plenty of humor in the midst of the mayhem. The directors spread the action wealth amongst their growing ensemble, giving Armando a terrific prison fight scene and, in one standout sequence, allowing an established supporting character to show off never-before-seen (and hilarious to behold) fighting prowess.
Is Bad Boys: Ride or Die also extremely silly, with its fair share of cheesy dialogue and some jokes that miss the mark? Absolutely. But there’s so much to enjoy here, and the energy is infectious. By the time the needle drops on a cover of Inner Circle’s “Bad Boys” from an exceedingly unlikely source, the film has more than proven its willingness to go big and reap big rewards in the process.
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