A cartoonishly dumb Bad Boys: Ride or Die still unleashes another great summer action romp

Sony Pictures

In the late ’90s into the early ’00s, the phrases “high-octane” & “buddy-cop duo” were synonymous with Bad Boys. That Will Smith and Martin Lawrence-led vehicle beat The Fast & The Furious to the screen by six years—cornering the fast cars and big explosions subgenre, before blasting past all imitators in 2003 with Bad Boys II. Yet then it all changed when the third film hit development hell. F&F charged to the front and crowned itself king, with John Wick brandishing his own form of action. Flipping the script again, Bad Boys For Life was a surprise hit in 2020, ready to show it still had the goods. It’s a trend Bad Boys: Ride or Die follows, by being a once forerunner, now forever playing catch-up.

This entry kicks off with a celebration and a tragedy. Eternal bachelor Mike Lowrey (Smith) is getting married to Christine (Melanie Liburd). Mike’s Miami PD partner Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) suffers a massive heart attack at the reception. It isn’t the end of the world though, as the near-death experience gives perpetually frazzled Marcus a new lease on life, thanks in part to a conversation with his deceased friend, Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano).

The basic plot for Ride or Die is a bit cumbersome to unwind. Instead of one coherent bit to follow, there’s at least 4 or 5 hair-brained threads stretched as thin as possible.

The main one focuses on a team of maybe mercenaries, led by a glowering Eric Dane, who plant a bunch of money in the deceased Howard’s bank account to make him look corrupt. They do this on behalf of the cartel while looking for files that reveal the true corrupt cops on the police force—information, it should be pointed out, that the bad guys already know and no one else is looking for. [Rhea Seehorn is involved in this segment and delivers her very best “Tommy Lee Jones from The Fugitive” badassery as a U.S. Marshall.]

Other beats tackle Marcus’s new lease on life, Mike dealing with panic attacks and his estranged son in jail, Armando (Jacob Scipio), along with the joint pressure of the district attorney (Ioan Gruffudd) and current police captain (Paola Nuñez).

Lastly, there is the element that all the marketing material highlighted: Mike and Marcus on the run from authorities. It barely makes this list because it’s encapsulated by a montage and car chase, or roughly 10 minutes of the runtime before it’s rendered moot.

Sony Pictures

In the past, the Don Simpson & Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Bad Boy films were never about how well-written they were. They focused on spectacle and shenanigans, due in part to having Michael Bay behind the lens. While he’s gone, the returning directing duo of Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah emulate his style to the Nth degree. Cars are toppled at every turn. Explosions are multiple stories high. The camera buzzes and weaves like a fly on a wall before adopting the first-person view of any intimate objects moving at great speed. It’s extremely chaotic, but also very thrilling. In a franchise that is so willing to seek entertainment wherever it may hide—and one that dealt with a an actual witch in the last entry—it’s sorta fine that this is as ridiculously, impossibly dumb as it is, because it certainly delivers the goods when it comes to sheer, delightful spectacle.

The other big staple of the series is the interplay between Lawrence and Smith. Often devolving into a series of arguments and insults-ladden jokes. Ride or Die switches things up, by letting Lawrence take the reigns. As great as the action is, it would be nothing without his puff-chested approach. Convinced he can’t die, Marcus throws all caution to the win and the film is all the better for it.

Most of the pieces in Bad Boys: Ride or Die work. So why does it feel like the weakest Bad Boys film? That’s harder to pin down. It might be the humor that tries too hard in the middle section, slowing things down a bit. It could be the way it saddles Mike with panic attacks that aren’t explored and easily solved with a slap. [Yes, Smith gets slapped here, and it seems to want us to lean in on a joke that we aren’t even sure Smith wants to be gesturing toward.]

There’s a dozen small things that keep the movie from being great, but never enough to stop it from being entertaining.

By the fourth film in a series, you’ve gotta assume that audiences are looking to spend more time with characters they already know and love, and by that metric, RoD delivers plenty of Smith & Lawrence Shengangians screen time. For anyone else coming without a nostalgic itch to scratch, it’s a solid two hours of mindless fun. Nothing screams summer action flick quite like an unending series of plot holes and logic leaps that are easily solved with another, bigger explosion than the last, previously delightful explosion.