Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatchu gonna do? Whatchu gonna do when they come for you? Bad Boys premiered in 1995, the sequel way back in 2003. Bad Boys for Life, the third movie in the franchise takes us back to Miami, where Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) have been partners in the force for over 25 years.
Marcus certainly is feeling his age, having been married with grown kids, and Mike is still ready to go and take down criminals with his own style. Marcus is eyeing retirement and his partner Lowrey, does not want any part of it. They are going by the motto of “Bad Boys for Life”. Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) is still running the precinct and a new tactical team has been established to carry out quick responses. This small team is led by Rita (Paola Nunez) who has had some history with Mike Lowrey.
Rita’s team is comprised by Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) the team badass. Rafe (Charles Melton) the resident smart ass who immediately chafes Mike’s hide and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig), the IT specialist and gentle giant. It is as if the recruiter got Rafe and Dorn from an Abercrombie catalogue. They are AMMO, the rapid response team assigned to take on immediate issues that affect Miami.
The current problem is an assassin taking out members of Miami’s law enforcement community. We learn that there is a Mexican drug cartel looking for retribution and it is led by Isabel Aretas, the widow of the Kingpin (Kate de Castillo, playing the character with such seething hatred) and her son Armando (Jacob Scipio)
Bad Boys 3 is co-directed by the team of Adil and Bilall, who have worked together on film for the past ten years. Taking over the franchise from Michael Bay. There are plenty of chases and gunfights in the movie. The action is fantastic, the rapport between Marcus and Lowrey is just plain hilarious. The chemistry of their partnership is still there, and their timing is on point. I did not expect to laugh so hard or so much.
The movie took a minute to find it’s pacing at the beginning. Once the story was set, the timing was quick, but steady and the humor came on one after another. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, it had all the elements that I would have expected from a Bad Boys sequel: a logical story line, action, humor, eye candy and car chases. I would recommend this movie for anyone who wants to lose themselves in an action film with a large side order of humor.
4 out of 5 Stars.
Second review by Lucas Wunsch
Nothing about this movie is going to surprise you. And that’s actually a good thing.
When the original Bad Boys debuted in 1995, I was 13 years old and convinced that it was the height of cinema. Over the top action, hyper-stylized sets and two of the biggest comedy starts of the mid-90s. What could possibly be better than this?
Although my standards for what makes a great film have changed as I’ve matured, my specific love for Bad Boys has never waned. And as the franchise has aged and released two sequels, it continues to hold a place in my heart, not because it has developed and grown, but because it remains honest about what it is and what it does.
In the latest installment (Bad Boys for Life), Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprise their roles as detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, two Miami cops that manage to attract more violent action than most deployed soldiers. Along with their captain (played once again by Joe Pantoliano) these two succeed in carving their way through downtown Miami in a hail of gunfire and crashed sports cars. However, after 25 years of being stunt cops, age begins to take it’s toll on them and their reflections begin to shift towards their futures after being cops.
While this film isn’t set up to win an Oscar, nor should it be dismissed as junk cinema either. Directors Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah have remained true to Michael Bay’s original formula for success: be funny and blow stuff up. And despite themes that many would consider cliché such as “the aging hero”, it’s clear that Smith and Lawrence recognize and embrace the over-the-top nature of the story in order to keep things from going just over the edge into nonsense.
Overall, the latest in the Bad Boys franchise succeeds for the same reasons as the previous films: they know exactly what they are and they’re unashamed to be there. Don’t expect anything revelatory in this movie and you certainly won’t be disappointed.
