Brought you from the school of “let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”, the latest instalment in the long-running Bad Boys franchise – the first film was released in 1995 – feels less like a real movie and more like an extended TikTok skit. Helmed by Belgian-Moroccan directing duo Adil & Bilall (AKA Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah), Bad Boys: Ride or Die reunites Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for the fourth time in the weakest film of the franchise so far.
When their recently murdered police captain gets falsely linked to drug cartels, Miami cops Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) embark on a race against time to clear their old mentor’s name. While Mike is apprehensive about their ability to uncover the conspiracy against their old boss, Marcus has deduced that a recent near-death experience has resulted in him becoming invincible.
Hilarity ensues when the duo are accused of deliberately breaking out Mike’s drug-trafficking son Armando from a high security prison. As the three go on the run, a bounty is put on their heads – John Wick style – resulting in the whole of the Miami underworld trying to capture them dead or alive.
While there is still plenty of the old buddy movie shenanigans we know and love from Smith and Lawrence, this latest instalment suffers greatly from a lack of direction. Granted, the action is pretty decent once it gets going, but the humour here is as crass and juvenile as one might expect. Which is a real shame for those of us who really liked the third movie and were really hoping for more of the same.
There are cameos from just about everyone – director Michael Bay, TiktTok star Khaby Lame, Dj Khaled, and podcaster Jay Shetty are just a few of the celebrities making an appearance, for seemingly no apparent reason.
Amidst all the chaos and the awful dad jokes, it often feels as though Smith is in a different movie from everyone else. His delivery is as precise as ever and at times there are glimpses of total panic behind the eyes that betrays his real feelings about the current state of this much-loved franchise.
Elsewhere, there are some fairly decent performances from Alexander Ludwig (The Hunger Games, Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant) as sensitive rookie cop Dom and Jacob Muntaz Scipio (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Expend4bles) whose turn is Mike’s drug-traficking illegitimate son Armando, is on its own worth the entry fee.
Still for all its crass humour and completely nonsensical storyline, the film still manages to be entertaining enough even when it runs out of things to do. Fans of the franchise are sure to lap it up, other will wish this had been given more of a chance to be properly funny.
