Will Smith and Martin Lawrence fight against the decline of the ‘buddy movie’

After recovering the saga that they themselves inaugurated in 1995, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence They return to Miami in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. The fourth installment of Two rebel police officers brings us back to the duo of ‘timbers’ as endearing as they are incompatible, this time faced with a plot more twisted than ever.

Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah, the directors who revitalized the franchise in 2020 with Bad Boys for Life, repeat in this new film. In the distribution, also Vanessa Hudgens, Eric Dane, Tiffany Haddish, Jacob Scipio and Ioan Gruffudd, There are faces already known to fans such as Joe Pantoliano and John Salley.

Review of ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’

‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’

After having scored the most popcorn 80s and 90s, The police ‘buddy movie’ is today a genre on the verge of extinction. Despite the efforts of titles such as Two good guys, It is difficult to remember today that time when the ‘intense cop + funny cop’ equation to spice up the shootings with comedy and sweep the box office.

So things are, Bad Boys for Life It was endearing in 2020 for rescuing one of the last franchises that succeeded through this formula, and also surprising for executing said task in a very appreciable way. Its continuation, however, loses the surprise factor to remain a worthy title of action and jokes (What is not little).

Between a Martin Lawrence unleashed by the effects of a near-death experience (He just needs to recover the wig from ‘This grandmother is a danger’) and a Will Smith whose character faces the effects of a surprise fatherhood (the boy has turned out to be a hitman: it’s normal for him to be upset), plus a script that covers the file, the film remains dependent on the style vocation of its directors.

And if anything can be said about Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah, it is that they have hit the nail on the head here. The filmmaking duo doesn’t seem to know any other way to introduce an ellipsis other than using time lapse of urban landscapes, any lighting other than fluorescent neon or any other way of filming action scenes that does not induce dizziness based on drones, bullet time or whatever it takes.

So that, Bad Boys: Ride or Die It accepts without complexes its condition as a kitsch artifact, something that we must accept. If his intense moments are defiance of logic with albino alligators, or if Lawrence’s character goes overboard with sweets like Asterix With the magic potion, one has two options: either enter the game, or shake your head thinking that this movie can’t be fixed.

With a new cameo from Michael Bay (although not as glorious as the previous installment), and with interesting additions (Tiffany Haddish’s tongue could give more than one nightmares), Ride or Die It is still an invocation to a Hollywood of explosions and one liners that only exists in memory. Could it be that, as he said Danny Glover in deliveries of lethal weapon, Are we getting too old for this shit?

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