Buckle up because the Summer movie season kicks into high gear with a brand-new installment of a big loud action franchise. This one goes back 29 years, so it’s a few decades behind the recent FURIOSA which is the latest entry of a series that’s now 45 years old. Oddly this weekend’s big release marks only four years since the previous, the shortest turn-around time of the four. Yes, this makes for a quartet centered around a buddy-cop duo that’s well into middle age but still embraces a youthful moniker in BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE.
As this adventure begins, detectives Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are racking up the moving violations as they speed through the sun-baked streets of Miami. But they’re not in pursuit of a “perp”. No, it’s Mike’s wedding day, to his beautiful physical therapist Christine (Melanie Liburd). Naturally Marcus parties way too hard and is felled by a massive heart attack, much to the shock of co-workers Kelly (Vanessa Hudges), Dorn (Alexander Ludwig), and Captain Rita (Paola Nunez) who’s with her new beau, Mayor (and maybe future governor) Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd). But while Marcus recoups in the hospital, the evil plans of the mysterious McGrath (Eric Dane) are set into motion when he has a hacker wire millions of dollars of drug money into the account of the former police captain (RIP) Howard (Joe Pantoliano). As Mike visits Marcus, he awakens after a vision (involving that same late boss) and announces that he is now “invincible”. This is set aside when they’re called in about the new “evidence” that Howard was “on the take”. Mike is determined to clear him. But how do they get info on the possible “framers’ in the powerful drug cartel? His best link may be his incarcerated illegitimate hitman son Armando (Jacob Scipio), who was revealed in the previous film. When they try and bring him in for questioning, McGrath sabotages the air transport, sending the trio on the “lam”, after being “set up” for the murders of the pilot and security. Now the trio is wanted, not only by the feds, including Howard’s daughter turned FBI agent Judy (Rhea Seehorn) who wants revenge against Armando, but also by the underworld when McGrath puts out a multi-million dollar dead-or-alive bounty on them. Can the trio survive despite Mike’s crippling anxiety attacks, take down McGrath, and clear their names?
The series duo appear to be “punching the clock” as they try to inject some new life into this now multi-generational action storyline. Smith seems to be going through the ‘tough cop” checklist which may account for the addition of the “panic attack” dent in his armor (the Kryptonite for this super-cop). Perhaps this was thought to give Mike an “edge’, while Smith tries to recapture that “Big-Willie magic” and make audiences forget that Oscar “incident” (now the former “July 4th King” has to get a month’s head start at the box office). For much of the time he’s the irritated ‘straight man’ for the ham-fisted histrionics of Lawrence, now a bug-eyed caricature shouting out every line as though the volume makes up for the lack of real wit. The rest of the cast mainly blends into the background with Hudgens and Ludwig doing a riff on the “guy in the chair” clicking away on the keyboard as Nunez tries to keep the title twosome on track. Dane as McGrath is a cliched one-note thriller sadist, but at least one other male twosome gets a chance to shine. Scipio seethes with resentment and a bit of familial yearning before he flexes his fight skills in a terrific prison yard smackdown. Ditto for Dennis Green as the “straight from the front lines” Reggie, the son-in-law of Marcus, who becomes a fearsome protector when the baddies breach “casa de Burnett”. There are a couple of “fan service ” cameos from actors seen in earlier installments along with a needlessly explicit bit of nastiness from Tiffany Haddish, there just to shock us and earn the “R” rating.
The mayhem is overseen by another duo, Aldi El Arbi and Bilall Fallah who helmed the last entry, FOR LIFE, four years ago. They attempt to “ratchet up” the frequent stunt scenes while trying to engage us in the bond between the two leads ( who sometime behave as though they’re in different flicks). It all gets a bit exhausting as the story lumbers through so many late-last-century action blockbuster cliches and set pieces. I mean the establishing shots of a fun and sexy city in the sun feel lifted right out of a classic first season “Miami Vice” from the 80s (not to mention the intrusive “product “placements”). Plus the guys telegraph the big plot “twists” (the guns are taken so they can be used in the frame moments later) included the big climax in an ole shuttered alligator theme park (could we get a CGI attack ala’ ERASER, mmm). And boy, are A and F thrilled with “drone tech”? The camera careens over the chaos in some many dizzying bits, you may regret having those concession stand nachos. It leads up to an extended piece in the middle of the big rescue that feels like a “first person” shooter video game as we bounce from Mike’s POV to the almost endless “goon fodder”. And of course, there’s the mind-numbing property damage as they create auto wreckage for several new huuge junkyards. Plus the big reveal of the opening moments with Mike tying the not is quickly jettisoned. His bride Christine exists, like many characters, to be an eventual pawn in McGrath’s plan (not even a bit with the newlyweds setting up a shared home). ah, but there’s ample time for a cringy revamp of the big theme song (we needed this “pep rap”). Of course, this doesn’t matter to fans of the franchise as they see these two taking on the baddies (an encounter with backwoods rednecks goes nowhere) and making things “blow up real good”. For casual viewers who can make it past all the winking bits of “fan service”, you may wish that they will finally hang up the holsters and turn in their badges after BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE.
1.5 Out of 4
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, June 7, 2024
