The time gap between “Bad Boys II”, directed by Michael Bay, and the follow-up “Bad Boys for Life”, helmed by Adil & Bilall, was a considerable near twenty years. Despite this, Smith and Lawrence came back just four years later, although the events in the meantime made it seem much longer.
Despite its chaotic nature, “Bad Boys for Life” demonstrated an unexpected amount of discipline and ended up as the highest-grossing US film of the year, although this achievement came during an atypical period which saw world lockdowns shortly after the movie’s release.
Smith’s shocking outburst at Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars may not have made historical headlines, but the film industry is keen to assess the impact on his brand following the first major release after the event.
Smith appears to be in good form, yet a tad heavier in the face. Most of the ageing gags fall to Lawrence in another instalment of a franchise that is not quite ready for retirement (keep an eye out for “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F”, arriving soon).
Detectives Mike and Miles, played by Will and Martin respectively, are still patrolling Miami, driving flashy cars beyond the reach of an ordinary police officer. Miles undergoes a health-related incident early on, temporarily crosses over to the afterlife and upon returning he is restricted from consuming certain brand-name snacks.
The ghostly reappearance of their late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) in a corruption investigation sets the team off into reckless action. The plot, embedded in a bedlam of action scenes, is challenging to decipher. The 2020 instalment, despite its confusion, did have a consistent storyline, something that the Belgian directing duo, Adil and Bilall, known for their love of flamboyance, managed to maintain to a degree, but seems to have lost subsequently.
This latest film wildly jumbles a collection of audacious, rather disagreeable characters inside a colossal tin of biscuits, aggressively stirring them till their egos clash, before hurling them into a starkly illuminated, never-ending horror show. Vanessa Hudgens commands the scene, Ioan Gruffudd plays a menacing overlord, while Tiffany Haddish manages to preserve a measure of dignity despite being assigned a shockingly unsophisticated role with not much demanded of her. And the list goes on.
We’ve been drawing unflattering comparisons between films and video games for approximately three decades. The trend has become tiresome. However, Bad Boys: Ride or Die obliges us to once again conjure this equivalent. The hero-villain confrontations eerily resemble the interspersed non-playable scenes in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (a game which arguably has some debt to the original 1995 film, Bad Boys). A first-person scene later in the movie takes us back to the visual aesthetics of Doom or Wolfenstein.
Unfortunately, this comparison does illuminate the unfortunate truth that storytelling in video games is often better orchestrated than what’s seen in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. The film comes off as a jumble of scenarios – a few are stunning, most are incomprehensible – failing to weave together any sort of intelligible narrative. Almost makes one yearn for the return of Bay and his organised chaos.
At the heart of it all, Lawrence and Smith do a passable job of navigating through this mayhem. Lawrence’s portrayal of an almost 60-year-old man’s huffing and puffing is convincing. Smith, a tad younger, doesn’t shake up the performance much – still casually riding his metaphorical bicycle with a finger hooked around the back of a slowly moving tram. He should tread lightly – the injuries don’t mend as readily as in their younger years.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die will be shown in theatres starting on Wednesday, June 5th.