Review: Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)

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Corrupt military professionals. Redemption through violence. A man killing 15 others played for laughs. The punchline: “I hate politicians.” Michael Bay may no longer be behind the camera for Bad Boys: Ride or Die, but his sensibilities are alive and well in the series, which has enjoyed an unexpected afterlife with consistently entertaining late sequels. Bay even gives a brief cameo in the film to offer his blessing over the entire outing, putting the icing on the cake of this vulgar, ludicrous, fun summer blockbuster.

The vulgarity of the film is key. Directed by Adil & Bilall, the music video directors behind the previous film, Bad Boys For Life (2020), Bad Boys: Ride or Die isn’t ashamed to have tasteless jokes, copious violence, and an absurd visual approach that defies the laws of physics. Vulgarity is mostly missing from modern blockbusters, so it’s perversely refreshing to watch a movie that’s as casually unhinged and uncouth as this one. It’s also effective, like the last one, at letting its stars cook.

Will Smith, still trying to live down The Slap, needs more movies where he can play to his strengths as a movie star (he’s got his Oscar), and Martin Lawrence barely makes many movies anymore, period. So it’s fun to watch Smith and Lawrence return as Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett, the bad boy Miami cops who do the right thing but make a mess doing it. The actors clearly like the characters and they like playing off each other and it shows in the product on screen, which puts its stars front and centre and enjoys watching them verbally spar or ridicule others or shoot up an abandoned amusement park full of black ops assassins.

The movie begins with a wedding where Lawrence’s Marcus goes so hard, he has a near-fatal heart attack. Ethereal visions of his deceased captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano) convince him that he can’t die, so he grabs life by the horns and goes hog wild. Shortly after, some cartel baddies fabricate evidence to smear the late captain’s good name. Mike and Marcus can’t abide by that, so they go off the grid to find out who’s fabricating the evidence, despite a hardass US Marshal and Captain Howard’s daughter, Judy (a wasted Rhea Seehorn), being out for blood. Mike’s bastard child from the previous film, Armando (Jacob Scipio), returns and enjoys the classic TV show late-season arc for early season villains: redemption through bloodshed (think everyone from Spike in Buffy to Boyd Crowder in Justified). Mike and Marcus bumble their way through detective work with the help of millennial police experts, Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig), who return from the previous installment.

The narrative isn’t all that memorable, but it keeps moving forward and comes in at under two hours, which is a plus in our contemporary blockbuster environment. It mostly moves from one action set piece to another, each scenario upping the ridiculousness of the presentation. Adil & Bilal don’t have the vulgar poetry of Bay, but they’re pretty good imitators of Bayhem. Their camera swerves and flies around the screen, always bathing the heroes in yellow and blue light, always shooting them from below so they look extra heroic, always slowing the camera movement just enough to watch a bad guy get killed in a brutal manner or to cut to a close-up so Martin Lawrence can deliver a punchline. It’s a film that has an actual sheen, which is almost underheard of in modern action cinema. They even pick up some drone tricks from Bay—you just know he was giving them tips based on his insanely ambitious drone work in Ambulance (2022).

There are also the sentimental moments where Mike and Marcus bare their souls to each other or muse about death and the possibility of an afterlife and think back on all the choices they made. Bay is vulgar, but he’s also sentimental, and so are Adil & Bilall. The movie gets surprisingly spiritual at moments, but explores these moments usually through absurd dialogue from Martin Lawrence, which is also surprising. Are these moments moving? No, but they’re heartening, and the affection for the actors and the characters makes them land better than you’d expect (similar to how they do in Bad Boys For Life).

As far as third sequels go to 1990s franchises, Bad Boys: Ride or Die does the job and retains enough of the vulgar charms of the originals to warrant keeping up with Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett all these years later. It’s also another reminder that despite the franchise system neutering most of Hollywood, some movie franchises are capable of keeping the spirit of their originals alive, warts and all.

6 out of 10

Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024, USA)

Directed by Adil & Billal; written by Chris Bremner and Will Beal, based on characters created by George Gallo; starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Núñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, Tasha Smith, Rhea Seehorn, Tiffany Haddish, Joe Pantoliano.

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