Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)

2 Stars (out of 4)

I'll Walk, Thanks

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

With Bad Boys: Ride or Die, this increasingly road-weary series tries to limp into more "mature" territory with its characters and their relationships, but it's only the same old shootouts, explosions, and dumb humor.

Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) finally decides to tie the knot, with Christine (Melanie Liburd). Dancing at their wedding, Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) has a heart-attack and lands in the hospital. When he wakes up, he has a new lease on life; he's no longer afraid. Meanwhile, an obscene amount of money has been transferred to an account in the name of Mike and Marcus's late Captain (Joe Pantoliano), making it look as if the captain was crooked and in cahoots with drug cartels.

The only person who can identify the culprit is Mike's son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), who is incarcerated. Mike arranges to have Armando transferred to a safe location so he can make the ID, but their helicopter is sabotaged and Mike and Marcus are framed. Suddenly, Mike, Marcus, and Armando find themselves on the run from the law, with no one to trust.

Indeed, Bad Boys: Ride or Die seems to be attempting to follow in the tire tracks of the Fast and Furious series with its obsession with "family," but it's so half-baked and mismatched that it makes that other brain-dead series look sharp. Not to mention that the so-called character developments here go nowhere. Marcus learns to conquer his fears, and Mike learns to overcome his panic attacks (via a slap on the face), but in the long run these things don't contribute anything to the story.

Co-directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (known as "Adil & Bilall") attack this material at full-speed, swirling and swinging their cameras every which way and cutting without mercy. In an early scene, Marcus looks at his watch, and the filmmakers cut to a shot of Marcus's face from the point of view of the watch. The story itself is silly, and often predictable, all the way to the third-act showdown at an "abandoned amusement park," which could have provided some fun visuals, but doesn't. (Even the promise of a huge albino alligator named "Duke" disappoints.)

Smith and Lawrence still have an uneasy camaraderie, like an even more lowbrow Abbott and Costello, consisting of Mike ordering Marcus around and cutting each other down. Sometimes it feels like they click, and other times it feels as if they're just tired and wish they were somewhere else. Bad Boys: Ride or Die ought to come with a third option: "avoid."