REVIEW: Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)

Movie Reviews

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is being touted as the last hope to jump-start the box office before Deadpool & Wolverine, which doesn’t arrive until the end of July, just before the summer movie season is typically winding down. That makes it all the more amusing that the newest in Martin Lawrence and Will Smith’s buddy cop series feels like a Netflix movie, albeit a semi-upper-tier one. (It’s nowhere near as good as something like The Irishman, but it’s not nearly as bad as anything Zack Snyder has made for the streamer.) It’s lightweight, overstuffed, shoddily filmed, and has too much silly humor; on the other hand, some jokes land, a few subplots have nice payoffs, and the leads continue to charm their way through material that is less than what they deserve.

As Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) find new leases on life, the FBI and the top brass at Miami PD accuse the late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) of being in business with drug cartels. The Bad Boys set out to clear their friend’s name and soon find themselves on the lamb with their families in the crosshairs of the real bad guys – and Mike’s psycho killer son Armando (Jacob Scipio) along for the ride (or die).

The first twenty minutes of Bad Boys: Ride or Die are a chore, a series of eye-rolling scenes that desperately grasp for laughs while setting up many of the plot points that weigh down the rest of the movie. Mike gets married; we’ve never met the woman and don’t get to know her in this film, and his new marriage is barely brought up until the third act, so it’s hard to care. Marcus has a heart attack and comes out of it with some weird spirituality that does little except lead to a lot of broad comedy that occasionally works but usually doesn’t. Nothing much happens to service the main plot (outside the introduction of a character who sticks out like such a sore thumb that he can only be a secret villain), but the character setup is so meaningless it feels like wasted time.

Once the plot does kick in, Bad Boys: Ride or Die feels more alive than it did, but it’s awash with missed opportunities. Mike and Marcus have to exonerate Captain Howard and find the real traitors, eventually going on the run when they’re framed as well (this was all in the trailer). They’ve also got a bounty on their head so the bad guys can have local gangs take care of them. But this is never explored like it could have been. The bounty on their heads is forgotten after a single confrontation. As for the frame plot, I was hoping to see the Bad Boys stripped of their resources and contacts, relying only on their wits and their friendships, showing the newfangled AMMO guys how it’s done. But this never happens; you don’t get a sense that they’re in any danger or even that they’re wanted fugitives. Moreover, they’re not even alone; they’re with Armando, whose relationship with Mike becomes the focal point of the human drama rather than Mike and Marcus.

This is the central problem with Bad Boys: Ride or Die – it feels like it could have been two movies. Having one about Mike and Marcus going on the run to clear Captain Howard and another with them teaming with Armando to fight bad guys and bond over family would have been much better, giving these storylines and arcs time to breathe. And to be fair, Ride or Die gets some things right; there are good payoffs to some of these plots and subplots (the climax to this one is certainly more satisfying than the one to Bad Boys for Life), but they don’t have the weight they could have if they had more time to play out. We also could have gotten more time with the villains, who show a lot of promise but ultimately aren’t around long enough to be much more than generic bad guys waiting to get some Bad Boys justice.

That leaves the action, which, unfortunately, is subpar. Bad Boys for Life felt like directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (or “Adil & Bilall,” as they like to be called, for some reason) were going to extremes to replicate Michael Bay’s style of filmmaking; say what you want about that, but it made for a good-looking movie with some well-filmed action sequences. Bad Boys: Ride or Die has less of that, minus one of those circular pans Michael Bay loves so much. The result is an over-stylized “modern” action film with shaky cam (which I thought we were finally done with, but this is one monster that always rises from the grave), close-ups of people running that look like they’re from a Saturday Night Live sketch, and annoying camera tricks that sacrifice coherence for what Adil & Bilall seem to think are cool visuals. It’s lame, and this is a movie that could’ve used some thrilling action scenes to prop itself up with. On the other hand, I think I’m starting to see why Batgirl was canned.

But it’s not terrible. Bad Boys: Ride or Die is fast-paced and mostly fun, at least. There are some very funny lines, and the chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is still there. I also like the characters played by Alexander Ludwig and Vanessa Hudgens; in Bad Boys for Life, I was all set to hate the AMMO crew, but they’re not half bad, and I like the gag with the towering muscle mountain Ludwig being the techie guy who hates violence. Rhea Seehorn (who, apparently, was in Better Call Saul) also has a good role, but again, the film is so packed with plots and subplots that she doesn’t get the screen time she needs to flesh out her character and arc. And this is what I mean when I say Bad Boys: Ride or Die feels like an above-average Netflix movie; it has some good stuff, but it’s haphazardly put together, and the result is something best viewed at home when you’ve got nothing else to watch – although compared to what else is in theaters, it may be your best bet if you’re determined to go to the movies this weekend.