I’m sure this has been joked about already, and if not, you’ll hear it nonstop soon enough that a January released Bad Boys For Life is somehow a more fitting end to a trilogy than Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. While I was certainly keeping my hopes up, I was fully prepared for a uninspired, unnecessary, and belated sequel to the Bad Boys films, but the results are shockingly good. Despite Michael Bay not being at the helm of this, the newcomers to this franchise, the Belgian duo – Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, provide all the stylistic touches we’ve come to expect from a Bay action movie, but slightly less manic, a lot less mean, and devoid of all the gay panic of the previous installments.
In Bad Boys For Life, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett, respectively, as they both take different approaches to handling their aging. Marcus is hoping to retire while Mike wants to go hard up until the very end. However, both of their plans come to a halt when after a series of murders in the city, an assassination attempt is made on Mike, putting him in the hospital for months. When he recovers, Marcus reluctantly joins him for “one last ride” as they go find out who was responsible for the attack.
The Bad Boys franchise is a strange one. The first is by all measures as modest and serviceable 90s actioner, the second film is a fever dream of all of Michael Bay’s fascinations and cinematic fetishes that is so audacious and horrific that it’s kind of amazing to me, I love it. Taking Bay out of the equation while he does his Netflix movie (his most stylistically extreme since Bad Boys II, make what you will of that), the film lives and dies on how much we, as an audience will be invested in these two characters, and it turns out…there’s quite a bit to latch onto here.
Bad Boys II came out in 2003, and since then, Smith and Lawrence have really grown as actors, and they allow their age to be incorporated with the story being told here. This is very much a film about how these two react to their own sense of mortality. There’s actual moments of genuine pathos and character growth here, and both the actors play these dramatic beats with an endearing earnestness that makes you root for their relationship. It builds on their classic buddy cop dynamic into something a bit more meaty and interesting and different while still providing the humor that largely defined it, and the two are still terrific in that regard.
The filmmakers are clearly trying to emulate Bay’s style, which often never turns out good, but it largely works here because it utilizes his aesthetics to craft sequences that constructed in their own distinct way. Yes, the slick camera moves are there, the fast paced editing, the booming sound design, it’s all there, but it’s more cohesive and more aware of its use of space and choreography (excellent work from cinematographer, Robrecht Heyvaert, who notably also shot the 2018 film, Revenge). The script, which is credited to Chris Bremner, Peter Craig, and Joe Carnahan (the latter two were each involved in separate, previous drafts), doesn’t steer things too far from the basic action-comedy formula, but it mostly nails the fundamentals, and provides ample material for the actors to shine with, not just the two stars, but also supporting players like Joe Pantoliano, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, and Paola Núñez.
Fans of the series will probably be very happy with Bad Boys For Life, and action junkies can be rest assured that the film delivers on the action, which sticks to the gritty practicality of the previous films. However, as I write this, I think less about the thrilling action sequences, and more about the moments between the characters, hearing Mike and Marcus talk about their feelings, their hopes, their regrets, what they plan to do, and how they each differ in their philosphy. Much of it is played for laughs, absolutely, but the questions posed, the lessons learned, the growth that is experienced, it all still feels earned and rooted in grounded performances from two actors who work wonders around each other, and that is a deeply human sensation that I haven’t felt in any of the prior two films. I mean, it’s still no Bad Boys II, but the film is still a total blast, and while I’m not sure if another installment is called for (despite a mid-credits scene that begs for one), I would be more than happy to spend more time with these guys.