The Media Tourist

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return for another blast of slam-bang action and ha-ha hinjinks

Bad Boys: Ride or Die
Starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence
Directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilail Fallah
Rated R

In theaters Friday, June 7

Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? If you’re these bad boys, you make another movie. Ride or Die is the fourth in the Will Smith and Martin Lawrence action-comedy franchise, which began almost 30 years ago. So predictably, the nostalgia factor is sky-high, with two familiar characters recalling their past as crime-fighting bros while getting pulled into a new adventure involving cartel and cop cross-contamination on the mean streets of Miami.

Quips and bullets continue to fly as the jam-packed plot bulges with a buddy-cop buffet of f-bombs and crude jokes about below-the-belt body parts. It’s often genuinely funny, but the humor coexists in this Bad Boys movie-verse alongside episodes of explosive violence and high-body-count action, making for some jarring tonal shifts. A former cop recalls getting his fingernails pried off as a gruesome cartel torture—but wait, there’s Martin Lawrence in a hospital gown on a balcony, showing off his erection to downtown Miami. Ha-ha, right?

Smith is police detective Mike Lowrey, who mostly plays serious straight man to the frantic goofball antics of his partner, Marcus Burnett (Lawrence). Mike is settling into new married life with his wife (Melanie Liburd, from Ghost: Power Book II), while Marcus fights an addiction to junk food and embraces a new spiritual transcendence after his near-death experience—claiming that, in a previous incarnation, Lowrey was his lowly donkey. And that’s not the movie’s only ass joke.

It gets a bit overcrowded with supporting players, including franchise alum and newbies. There’s Vanessa Hudgens, Eric Dane, DJ Khaled and even Michael Bay, who directed the first two Bad Boys films. Eric Dane (who played Dr. Mark Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy) makes a chilling villain, and Tiffany Haddish gets a couple of naughty chuckles as a randy strip-club proprietor. Joe Pantoliano’spolice captain was murdered in a previous film, but hey, he’s back too, in flashbacks and dream sequences.

It’s a feature film, but the movie’s rhythm and “beats” make if feel like a big-screen sitcom, where the stars are never really in danger and everything can be laughed off by the audience, if not the characters. Country superstar Reba McEntire might even laugh at a scene in which Mike and Marcus—held at gunpoint by a couple of hillbilly yahoos— struggle to recall any of her songs. There’s even a scene that gives a whimsical nod to the 2022 Oscars incident in which Smith slapped host Chris Rock.

And lest you forget the movie is based in Miami, you’ll be reminded by numerous scenic skyline shots, including repeated background nighttime appearances by the massive Observation Wheel on the shores of Biscayne Bay. That’s perfect backdrop mojo, apparently, for planning stealthy counterattacks, making phone calls full of plot exposition and having some serious buddy bonding.

Fans of the franchise will likely lap it up, but anyone not already baptized in Bad Boys will probably sense the sequel fatigue seeping in, as it invariably does to most flicks that try to extend their shelf life across multiple decades. Smith and Lawrence gamely embrace the older versions of their characters, talking about this new phase of their lives while dodging gunfire or arguing about who’s grilling the chicken at a family picnic. But the novelty—of smack-talking buddy cops—has certainly worn off.

They may have once been bad boys, but now they’re older dudes. “Just refuse to die,” Marcus tells Mike, espousing his newfound invincibility after momentarily expiring on a hospital bed. Bad Boys may not ride forever, but Smith and Lawrence certainly seem up for at least one more blast of slam-bang action and ha-ha hijinks.

—Neil Pond