Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah

Starring:  Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, Jacob Scipio, Eric Dane, Vanessa Hudgens, Rhea Seehorn, Paola Nunez, Alexander Ludwig, Ioan Grufudd, Tasha Smith, Melanie Liburd, Tiffany Haddish, Dennis McDonald

Mike and Marcus are back in the fourth installment of the guaranteed hit making franchise.  It is no better or worse than the others.  There's action, comedy, and even spirituality thrown together in an ungainly package.  It'll more or less get the job done for its intended audience.  Will Smith and Martin Lawrence don't have the chemistry of Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy or Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, but they have their moments.  I found myself enjoying some of the supporting characters more.  

The movie begins with Mike and Marcus racing in Mike's sports car.  They are late to Mike's wedding, but Marcus needs to stop for a ginger ale before he throws up.  This leads to Mike and Marcus foiling a robbery before the nuptials.  Marcus then suffers a heart attack at the reception and nearly joins his late beloved Captain Howard (Pantoliano) in the hereafter before returning to the living.  Marcus feels immortal and invincible, and Bad Boys: Ride or Die puts that theory to the test.  Captain Howard was set up as a crooked cop on the take from the cartels.  It turns out, in a video message from the late Cap himself, that he was getting close to finding out who from Miami's finest was in the cartels' pockets. 

One was definitely a rogue cop called Banker (Dane), a ruthless killer who wires payoff money to Howard's account to set him up.  No one seems to notice this was done well after he died, but nonetheless the media suspects Howard of being corrupt.  When Mike and Marcus work to spring Mike's son Armando (Scipio) from prison, they are framed for the murder of the guards aboard the plane and the three find themselves on the run in the deep South.  A run-in with gun lovers in a trailer park hanging a Confederate flag goes nowhere.  Mike's newlywed bride barely registers and is offscreen most of the time.  

I admired Scipio's smoldering anti-hero quality and the movie also introduces Marcus' Marine soldier son-in-law Reggie (McDonald) as a John McLane-like bad ass when tasked to protect his family from home invaders.  Let's say he's handy with a gun.  I enjoyed the freshness of these players and would like to see more of them.  Maybe in Bad Boys 5, which there will almost assuredly be.