Bad Boys for Life

Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Joe Pantoliano, Paola Nunez, Kate del Castillo, Nicky Jam, Jacob Scipio, Theresa Randle, DJ Khaled
Directed by: Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Comedy
2020

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Mike and Marcus (Will Smith, Martin Lawrence) face off against a deadly threat that puts them in the crosshairs.

Review:

Tim: I wish I could have been more excited for Bad Boys for Life. The original debuted way back in 1995, the last film in 2003. There should have been more joy seeing Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprise these roles, 17 years after the last time they stepped into Mike and Marcus' shoes. A few things hampered the excitement. First off, the Bad Boys movies have never been that good. Sure, I liked the first film, but the second one was only decent. They were loud action movies, but Michael Bay didn't do anything spectacular with them. It was kind of cool to see these actors back in these roles, but there was nothing about this that felt like a "must see". There could have been some excitement about new directors stepping in for the first time, but Adil and Bilall basically just follow Bay's playbook. In the end, this movie was decent, but it's impossible not to expect or want more after such a long absence.

The movie feels like it appropriately continues the story of these characters, I'll give it that. Perhaps partially due to Bay not directing the film, and partially due to the age of the actors, it felt like the action was dialed back on this one. Sure, there's plenty of gunfights and car chases, but the movie certainly focuses more on character development. That felt like a big part of this movie, which normally is a good thing. The extra time we get with Mike and Marcus isn't fully utilized, though. There's plenty of their bickering and bantering, which is fine. It's lost some of its uniqueness. The move introduces a bunch of new characters, none of which were especially interesting. I was far more thrilled to see Joe Pantoliano show up again (man, where has he been? I feel like I haven't seen him in a decade). The newcomers I guess serve a purpose- to show us Mike and Marcus are no longer the hip, radical new kids. They're old. I wish the new characters were more interesting.

The film does dive into Mike's character and uses some of his backstory to propel the action in the film. This was a good idea. While the script doesn't fully leverage this idea, I enjoyed the more personal nature of the plot. It helps us to better understand Mike and gives him an interesting character arc throughout the film. None of this is brilliant, of course, but you can see what they were trying to do. I suppose that deserves some level of praise.

The action was okay. I know Michael Bay gets a lot of (mostly deserved) criticism for his loud, obnoxious action movies, but from an action perspective, they're excellent. That felt like it was missing here. Sure, there's a few effective sequences and some of the chase scenes get your blood pumping, but none of them reach the heights of the first two movies. I know that's to be expected after nearly two decades away, but it impacted my thoughts about the film.

It was fun to see Will Smith and Martin Lawrence play these characters again. These movies have always benefited from these two interacting together. Their banter is mostly enjoyable and I had some level of fun watching them back on screen. I loved seeing Joe Pantoliano again and he added a good supporting performance. I didn't even recognize Vanessa Hudgens, so I give her a ton of credit for what she did here. Alexander Ludwig was good, he had a few nice moments. The rest of the cast worked fine, but there weren't enough standouts. Even the villains could have been stronger, and it felt like the movie was tailor-made for them to break out.

Bad Boys for Life isn't a bad movie, but it doesn't feel like it was needed. There's some enjoyment derived from seeing these characters again, but it's hard to feel much excitement about the film. I guess if I'm searching for positives, it's good to see that this movie retained the level of quality from the last movie. It certainly isn't a bad film. However, it does wrap up this trilogy on a slightly disappointing note. The Bad Boys movies (in my opinion) now feature 1 good movie and 2 decent films. That's not an especially strong trilogy. That was probably always this film's fate, though. While I would have loved for this to reinvigorate the potential franchise, I don't know if that was in the cards. It's an okay sendoff for these characters, but it's a movie you could easily skip and you wouldn't miss much.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Bad Boys, Bad Boys II