Chemistry of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence still intact in cartoonishly over-the-top mess.<\/b>
\nArriving in theaters nearly three decades after Will Smith and Martin Lawrence proved to be a hilariously likable duo in the original \u201cBad Boys\u201d and four years after the entertaining, midlife-crisis threequel, the bombastic and cartoonishly over-the-top \u201cBad Boys: Ride or Die\u201d is one loud misfire.
It\u2019s like we\u2019re watching the Big Book of Action Movie Clich\u00e9s come to life, with so many tropes and overly familiar characters and plot developments crammed into the mix that we half-expect Smith and Lawrence to stop in the middle of the shootout sequence in the obligatory Abandoned Theme Park to look straight into the camera and wink at us.
No such luck. Smith and Lawrence are seasoned pros who still have an easy, best-friend chemistry, and the directors Adil & Bilal deliver sparkling visuals of the sparkling Miami locale, but the screenplay for \u201cRide or Die\u201d is a howler that awkwardly careens from sitcom-level banter to extended, blood-spattered mayhem to cheap melodrama.
\u201cBad Boys: Ride or Die\u201d kicks off with Smith\u2019s Mike Lowrey and Lawrence\u2019s Marcus Burnett roaring through the streets of Miami (with an amusing detour at a convenience store) to Mike\u2019s wedding to Melanie Liburd\u2019s Christine, a physical therapist who gives a speech about how she fell for Mike even before she knew he was loaded. (Yes, Mike\u2019s a detective lieutenant, but he comes from a wealthy family.)
Marcus suffers a serious health episode at the reception, and he nearly dies \u2014 but just when it seems as if we\u2019re going to lose him (which of course is not going to happen because then the movie would be \u201cBad Boy\u201d singular), Marcus has a between-worlds meetup with the dead Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who actually tells him, \u201cIt\u2019s not your time.\u201d (The clich\u00e9s continue later in the story, when Captain Howard appears in a video and says, you guessed it: If you\u2019re watching this, I\u2019m probably dead.)
Marcus re-joins the land of the living with a newfound spirituality, convinced he and Mike are soulmates, though the whole Zen thing seems to come and go from scene to scene. In a storyline so tired it needs to take a long nap, the beloved Captain Howard is posthumously framed for being in cahoots with a powerful drug cartel, and the evidence is pretty damning \u2014 but Mike and Marcus vow to clear Howard\u2019s name and take down the ex-Army Ranger-turned-cartel-leader named Banker (a snarling and very well-tanned Eric Dane) who is behind the frame-up.
The only one who can ID Banker is Mike\u2019s son Armando (Jacob Scipio), who as you might recall from \u201cBad Boys for Life\u201d is a drug-dealing assassin who gunned down Captain Howard and is in a maximum-security prison. In a sequence that combines (aka rips off) \u201cCon Air\u201d and \u201cThe Fugitive,\u201d Mike and Marcus and Armando find themselves on the run, with all three of them wanted by the authorities, not to mention every hardcore thug in Miami, thanks to the $5 million bounty placed on their heads, and I guess the price of bounties has gone up since there was a $2 million prize offered up to anyone who could kill John Wick back in the day.
In between some fast-paced shootouts, including a truly clever sequence viewed mostly through the lenses of Ring cameras, and another scene in which it feels like we\u2019re in a first-person video game (we can see the gun at the bottom of the frame), \u201cRide or Die\u201d crams in a number of new characters. Rhea Seehorn from \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d is U.S. Marshall Judy Howard, who is in charge of bringing in Marcus, Mike and Armando, and get this: Judy has extra incentive, because she just happens to be the daughter of Captain Howard, who was killed by Armando! Ioan Gruffudd appears as a district attorney with eyes on the mayor\u2019s office, while the usually terrific Tiffany Haddish has a terribly unfunny cameo as a character who makes no sense.
Even as Marcus has seemingly miraculously recovered from nearly dying just a few weeks ago, Mike experiences an existential crisis and suffers anxiety attacks. Why? It\u2019s never quite clear. In the meantime, \u201cRide or Die\u201d asks us to buy into a possible redemption storyline for Armando, which is a tough sell, what with him being a drug-dealing, stone-cold killer and all. By that point, either you\u2019ve placed your sense of logic in a nice little box at the door and you\u2019re in this for the sheer dumb entertainment value, or you\u2019re lamenting the fact that Mike and Marcus are stuck in this convoluted mess.<\/p>\n