Bad Boys: Ride or Die
Mike Lowry (Will Smith) is already dealing with the fact that his ex, Rita Secada (Paola Nuñez), is now his boss, having been promoted after Captain Howard’s (Joe Pantoliano) murder, when his and Marcus’s (Martin Lawrence) late boss is accused of drug-related crimes throughout his career. But as the partners attempt to clear his name, they’re framed as well and end up on the run from not only from their colleagues but a cartel and street gangs vying for a bounty in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.”
Laura's Review: B
Directors Adil & Bilall ("Bad Boys for Life") may be the best thing that’s happened to this franchise, which, oddly, seems to be getting better with age, a flavorful bucket of popcorn with bickering buddies engaging with major life events in between insane action sequences, one of which features a 16 foot, 900 pound albino alligator named Duke. The Belgian filmmakers keep multiple plates spinning in the air, their director of photography Robrecht Heyvaert ("Bad Boys for Life") favoring close-ups when he’s not doing fancy, magnetic SnorriCam shots where a camera is mounted on a moving object and then released. And through all the hilarity and brutality, writers Chris Bremner ("Bad Boys for Life") and Will Beall ("Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F") don’t forget earned emotional underpinnings as well as callbacks for fans to all the films that have come before.
This one opens much like the last, Marcus hanging on for dear life as Mike races his Porsche down Miami boulevards. Marcus begs for a stop and Mike gives him 90 seconds – just enough time for Marcus to go way off his diet and get involved in a hold-up, but Mike arrives in his allotted time to, as it happens, get them to the Church on time. At the age of fifty, Mike’s finally settling down, marrying Christine (Melanie Liburd), but those Skittles and day old hot dog catch up to Marcus on the dance floor, where he suffers a major heart attack.
Marcus has a visions of sinking in the sea, then on a moonlit beach where Captain Howard assures him it is ‘not his time,’ and so when he awakens in his hospital bed, Mike sleeping in a chair beside him, he’ll believe he’s invincible and that he and Mike have been soulmates through the ages, both beliefs that will frustrate Mike at almost every turn. They’ll both express outrage over Howard’s public smearing in Rita’s office, F.B.I. Agent Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd, 2004's "King Arthur") assuring them of hard evidence while Rita plays it down the middle.
After receiving a video from beyond the grave that instructs them 'The Coke bottle giant is the key. Don't trust anyone,” they pay a visit to Fletcher (John Salley) that ends up in a candy-colored shootout which makes them look suspicious themselves. They’ll seek help from Advanced Miami Metro Operations (AMMO) weapons specialist Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and pacifist techie Dorn (Alexander Ludwig), now engaged in a fling, and find a second video that hints at the mastermind’s identity. As it turns out, Mike’s incarcerated son Armando (Jacob Scipio, “Boys for Life”) is the man who can recognize him, but when Mike gets Rita to agree to transport him to a safe space, that man, James McGrath (Eric Dane, HBO's 'Euphoria') gets aboard the transport copter, gets its pilot to record a frame-up, then slits his throat.
This leads to one of many astonishing, multi-layered action scenes, the bad boys fighting the masked man who parachutes off while having to keep Armando’s locked cage from sliding out of the plunging aircraft. They all end up in a backwater swamp. And Howard’s daughter, U.S. Marshall Judy (Rhea Seehorn, AMC's 'Better Call Saul'), is tracking the three, now labeled fugitives, vowing to shoot Armando on sight for having killed her father. Meanwhile, McGrath puts out a bounty on their heads with every gang in Miami while sending men to the homes of Marcus and Mike.
The filmmakers have upped the ante with crisscrossing relationship ties and have found a viable path forward for Armando’s redemption (and a fifth installment). Characters from the past, like Marcus’s now son-in-law Reggie (Dennis Greene, "Bad Boys for Life") and the AMMO duo, are expanded upon, to the betterment of the whole, while new characters like Seehorn’s Judy and her daughter Callie (Quinn Hemphill) add additional stakes. “Couples Retreat’s” Tasha Smith smoothly replaces Theresa Randle as Marcus’s wife Theresa, DJ Khaled has a brief return and Tiffany Haddish has a fun cameo as a duplicitous, lecherous strip club owner. Perhaps the most major change is with Smith, who seems older here whether from life events of the past few years or the stress his character faces, while Lawrence supplies most of the film’s comedic aspects with his constant quest for junk food.
“Bad Boy: Ride or Die” just may be one of the biggest surprises of the summer movie season, the most entertaining installment of the franchise yet.
Sony Pictures releases "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" in theaters on 6/7/24.
