Bad boys, bad boys

Whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for 4? 

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith return for yet another go as the partners for life, Mike and Marcus. After taking a pretty large hiatus between the second film, also the worst received of the franchise, to then re-emerge with a Goliath of a sequel, scoring the highest critical reception of the series to this day. Bad Boys for Life also made considerable bank at the box office and was ultimately the highest growing feature of 2020, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic at the time. 

 

Bad Boys: Ride or Die has the boys ride again yet this time where the story may not excel like the previous entry, they’ve cranked up the fun. After Mike (Will Smith) gets married, Marcus has a heart attack soon after. While under, Marcus has a divine intervention with his late Captain Howard and comes back a new man with the belief that it’s not his time. Close after waking up, Captain Howard is framed for working with the cartels throughout his career and with the late Captain not around to defend himself, the bad boys must step in to clear his name. 

 

Lawrence and Smith since the very beginning have had a sincere nature to their partnership, they are one of the few iconic duo’s in cinema history to last together for over thirty years. What’s even more outrageous is after all this time, the two still look great and feel like the same people, just a little more golden with age. These bad boys are still bad, still willing to go that extra mile to do what’s right and solve the case. 

 

In this iteration of the duo, after Marcus’ heart attack his comedic level hits an all time high of over-the-top, while Mike remains the straight man in most cases now suffering from sudden panic attacks. These two very different elements of the film cause stalls in the investigation and make every moment more risky for these two to still be out in the field. Mike’s panic attacks play a major role in several instances, risking not only his own but others life’s with their occurrence. This adds an extra threat level for the film and this time it’s all internal forces, rather than a secret alliance. 

 

The returning cast of characters from the previous films work well in their roles as mostly allies for Mike and Marcus, with a few missing pieces here and there. Most notably Vanessa Hudgens’s Kelly and Alexander Ludwig’s Dorn continue to make a fantastic team-up. Plus it’s always nice to see the Captain again, even if it’s in recorded videos and dreamscapes. 

 

The new characters unfortunately don’t do a whole lot to the story, weighing down the narrative with yet another subplot of the Captain’s daughter and granddaughter thinking Mike is on the run with his now escaped convicted murderer of a son, the person to blame for the murder of the late Captain. Now that tracks for almost all the new characters, aside from the big bad of the film, who happens to be as maniacal in nature as an iconic 80s/90s villain. Eric Dane as this mysterious villain from the jump, is easily the best new element of this sequel. 

 

Now from a story standpoint, the premise of clearing the Captain’s name is much more competent than the congested story the boys end up actually going on in Ride or Die. From the attempt to clear Howard’s name comes murder, hard evidence against themselves and ultimately becoming fugitives on the run to make everyone in the film turn on the heroes. Not to mention the final fight all takes place in an alligator infested abandoned amusement park - just for flair. 

 

Ride or Die goes insane at points, staggering the levels between a Bad Boys film, a Fast & Furious entry and even a John Wick narrative. As a newly found lover of this franchise, I wish this series could just keep going and going but I also wish for more simplicity like the original back in ‘95 brought. It’s fun to see what kind of craziness these bad boys end up getting themselves into, but it’s also easy to miss the days of hiding witnesses in apartments pretending to be (in Marcus’ voice) “MIKE Lowry”. For fans of the franchise, this is yet another fantastic entry, while not surpassing the previous in form, it certainly does continue to lay out a fun future for this franchise. Also it’s good to see if this is the end, we finally get an iconic story arc for Reggie, from scared teenager in II to stronghold in IIII, let’s let Reggie cook.