Bad Boys For Life Review

Seventeen years have passed since Will Smith and Martin Lawrence teamed up to become Bad Boys. Going with the trend of Independence Day and Rambo for just a couple examples of the new way Hollywood has decided to try to change up the game from reboots and remakes. Instead of redoing something the concept now is lets take a movie that did well over a decade ago, get the band back together (Yes, I am aware a Bill & Ted sequel is on the way) and try to recapture that audience then if it doesn’t connect with test audiences let’s reshoot and throw some more nostalgia in to win over the audiences. Happily, this does not appear to be one of those, yes, it is a sequel from a movie long ago, though I enjoyed this one. Did I enjoy it as much as fans of the franchise, is it a franchise if its only two? maybe a little more. You see I grew up in the 90’s when the first two came out and I honestly cannot remember the first two, I vaguely remember in the second one a scene with a pool collapsing. I did not go back and re-watch the first two, just did not have enough time with work and family to get to that while jumping back in my movie watching saddle. So, I went in with the mentality that this is pretty much standalone movie in my head.

We start with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprising their roles of Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett (respectfully) racing through the streets of Miami for the birth of Marcus’ grand baby. While that is happening, Kate del Castillo is breaking out of prison and connecting with her own son, together seeking control of their cartel, I guess that’s what you would call it and plotting to kill “Bulletproof” Mike. In Miami high ranking officials start getting off’d one by one including a near fatal blow to Mike which starts a hunt for the man who shot Mike with the help of AMMO a group comprised of Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig and Charles Melton to name a couple that really has no reason for existing in the movie as the leader of the techie police squad, Rita (Paola Nunez) being the only one that seems to have a purpose to the story because of a history with Will Smith’s character. Together the buddy cop comedy team of Smith and Lawrence track down, Jacob Scipio who plays the assassin if you will of Miami which leads them back to Kate del Castillo’s character which brings in a deeper back story to Mike’s character. That’s the plot, it’s not much of one, but coming to see this were you expecting a killer storyline or to have some laughs and watch stuff blow up. If you are not aware the first two movies were directed by Michael Bay, you know what that means…Baymargeddon. For this outing the Bad Boys are directed by Adil Arbi and Bilall Fallah who for the most part try to wrangle down the expected over-the-top action and gives us some satisfying action sequences while keeping the shaky cam to a minimal. What works for this movie is it does not ignore that time has passed since the last movie and these two detectives are old, showing wear and tear. Will Smith gives the comedic action performance you would expect from him as he has kind of kept up in shape better than Martin Lawrence who pulls off the comedic moments better than the action ones.

The long distance sequels category has a pretty hit or miss record with the misses having the higher count (Dumb & Dumber 2 anyone), I enjoyed this one though, I was not bored and laughed quite a bit especially when Lawrence interacts with a certain bad guys injury. What I don’t like though is it does what movies now a days like to do and that is setup for a possible sequel, did we really need that end credits scene? Can’t we just have an enjoyable buddy cop movie without having to think, gee I wonder if Vanessa Hudgen’s character is going to be in the next one. You don’t necessarily have to of seen the first two to enjoy this one, though I think there are some nods to events in the first ones that went over my head, but I didn’t feel lost by any means. It’s am enjoyable popcorn munching ride that if you have the time and a friend or two that grew up with Bad Boys and the comedy of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, you’ll probably have a good time together. B.