If that title is posed as a question, I say – Die.
A lot.
As a brand that has now CLEARLY outstayed it’s welcome, the smart move on the part of long-time series super-producer and franchise champion Jerry Bruckheimer (Black Hawk Down) would be to take these Bad Boys out to the pasture and quickly end the pain with a shot to the back of the dome. And make sure he double-taps, because this bullshit is simply embarrassing. Bruckheimer’s late producing partner Don Simpson (who posthumously still gets a Producer credit) must be spinning in his grave like a fucking top, and not just cuz of the Scarface-level amounts of snow he did while still on our mortal plane.
Where to begin…
I unapologetically love the original 1995 Bad Boys. It was Michael Bay’s first feature after a career as a successful commercial / music video director and within the first opening shots, I could clearly see that Bay was a dedicated disciple of one of my all-time favorite directors, that being the late, great Tony Scott (True Romance)…RIP. That man, gone WAY too soon, had style to spare and it oozed through his impressive multi-decade filmography. During his reign as a block-buster go-to action director in the 80’s / 90’s, he effortlessly inspired many younger MTV-reared filmmakers at the time; an influence that you can still see popping up in today’s cinematic landscape. Michael Bay’s first Bad Boys flick was a clear-cut example…and I loved it, warts and all. The action, the humour, the music, the style, the effortless chemistry between leads Will Smith and Martin Lawrence…it all worked for me and I still hold it dear. It actually made #35 on my recent Top 100 Favourite Films List (https://thekneejerkreaction.com/2025/11/11/thekneejerkreactions-favourite-100-movies/), just to give you an idea.
Now, none of my fawning is to suggest that it’s a perfect flick…it’s not. But for me, the pros far out-weigh the cons and I always get a kick out of it when I toss it on every few years. The success of that first one paved the way for Michael Bay’s stratospheric rise through the Hollywood ranks, commanding larger and larger budgets till 2003, when he came back to helm the inevitable sequel, the imaginatively named Bad Boys 2. This was where the fallacies in Bay’s now-signature style, and further evidence of his infantile brand of offensive humour, began to show themselves. While there are key scenes that I admittedly appreciate (the Haitian hijack / car chase sequence immediately comes to mind), I find BB2 to be a bloated and crass exercise in over-indulgence that further downgraded my diminishing appreciation (by that point) for Bay’s in-your-face, style-over-substance approach, especially after what he did with that horrid and inexcusable Titanic-wannabe Pearl Harbor (2001).
And don’t even get me started on his Transformers bullshit.
Either way, when the time came for a third kick-at-the-can, Bay opted to hand the reins over to up-n-coming directors Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah, for 2020’s Bad Boys for Life. These two stepped in and did a decent, almost good, job emulating Bay’s visual touch, and I’ll admit that the third installment wasn’t awful. I’d even call it entertaining, though it came nowhere near my appreciation for the ’95 original.
With the third entry making solid bank at the box office that year, Adil and Billal (as they’re credited) began fielding other high-profile projects and their next one landed them on the Warner Bros. backlot directing the big-budget blockbuster-wannabe Batgirl.
Then something happened.
News and rumours trickled out that WB weren’t digging what they saw in the Batgirl rough cut, to the point where they fairly quickly pulled the rare move of deep-sixing a virtually completed picture, and writing it off via insurance claim. That got some eyebrows cocking, as everyone paying attention had to ask – what could’ve been SO bad that WB said ‘nope, not putting THIS out there.’ Since no one ever got to see the potential shit they’d dumped on WB (was, perhaps, the cancellation warranted?), there was tangible sympathy and regard for Adil and Billal, which I believe helped bring them back to Sony for this new Bad Boys installment.
Having now witnessed this ‘movie’, I’m beginning to understand the motivations behind Warner Bros.’ decision.
I had caught Bad Boys for Life in the theatre and had a good enough time with it, but when this one hit, Life had my attention directed elsewhere and, to be honest, I didn’t really give a shit anymore. I knew I’d see it eventually so, Life went on.
Since I’ve been afforded the opportunity to fire my reviews back up (it’s amazing how disruptive a spousal break-up can be, huh), I figured that I might as well check it out, for no other reason than added content, and an excuse to curl up with my dogs on a quiet Friday night with a pre-roll and an icy vodka / soda. Unfortunately, my new living situation has a shitty Wifi network, currently rendering streaming almost impossible, so I was forced to seek this one out in a physical media format, which in this case was an on-sale Blu ray.
And here we are.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die picks up with Miami detectives ‘Mike Lowrey’ (Will Smith) and ‘Marcus Burnett’ (Martin Lawrence) in the throes of that existential horror-show that I myself have come to recognize as ‘middle age’. ‘Mike’ has finally hung up his bachelor spurs and is getting married to…some chick that I think I’m supposed to remember from a previous installment…while ‘Marcus’ is fighting (and losing) a battle with his own poor impulses where those demons known as Fat, Sugar and Sodium are concerned (I can relate).
As ‘Mike’ is tying the knot at a moronically staged wedding, ‘Marcus’ has a jammer and keels over, seemingly done-zo. After a cringe-worthy episode in the After Life(!), ‘Marcus’ comes back with a maniacal zest for life, entrenched in the belief that he’s invincible, that it’s ‘not his time’. As this lunacy is being dealt with, nefarious ex-military forces emerge to publicly frame departed-but-still-beloved ‘Captain Howard’ (Joe Pantoliano), who was sadly assassinated in the last flick. In order to clear their departed captain’s name, they partner up with ‘Mike’s incarcerated Cartel hitman bastard of a kid (you know, the one that fucking killed Joey Pants!), before all finding themselves fugitives not only from this mysterious new group, but also from the Cartel AND the Miami PD / FBI.
Garishly coloured hijinks ensue.
So, as I promised myself, I got the dog-girls situated comfortably, toked back half a joint of some really nice sativa (thank gawd for the Devil’s Lettuce or this would’ve been excruciating) and poured out my drink-of-choice, settling in on an eerily still Friday night with my pad and pen.
PLAY
Scribbles were scribbled. Here they be…
-I do appreciate the classic DS /JB logo. That iconic logo is attached to several of my favorite films from the 80’s / 90’s, and since Don Simpson AND Jerry Bruckheimer were responsible for bringing this franchise to fruition in ’95, just before Simpson’s untimely but inevitable death (he was the definition of Hollywood hedonism, tragically so. Check out the book HighConcept for the scandalous details), Bruckheimer has continued to honour that with the continued use of their old-school, lightning-strike logo.
-OK, amusing opening scene. Convenience store robbery. As ‘Marcus’ goes nutty with a weird case of ‘out of the blue’ munchies in a convenience store, he finds himself having to deal with an armed robbery AND ‘Mike’s angered annoyance. It was amusing…while also being a harbinger of what was to come.
-Capt. Howard shout-out! For some reason, there’s a huge framed picture of Joe Pantoliano’s departed character, just lurking off to the side during the wedding vows. For years, decades even, I’ve always loved the plethora of fascinating supporting characters that Joey Pants has brought to the screen, going all the way back to ’85, when I was lucky enough to see him as ‘Francis Fratelli’ in The Goonies, on The Big Screen. Been a fan ever since. Also, being one of the…ahem…’follicley-challenged’ myself, I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated the ways that Joe’s premature baldness has been incorporated, often for humorous, self-deprecating effect. Own that shit, man! Represent!
*raises clenched fist over freshly shaven scalp in solidarity*
-And the cheese begins. Marcus after-life scene. Fuck off! It doesn’t take long for this shit to go off the rails straight into Stupid Land. Now we’ve got ‘Marcus’ traipsing around what I think is supposed to be The River Styx, all played for cheesy laughs and syrupy sentimentality. I cringed a bit. Really did. This garbage does NOT mesh with anything from the previous flicks. Tonally jarring and totally silly, in an UN-amusing, unironic way.
-There’s silly shit happening now. This sentiment becomes a constant. Not a compliment.
-The wife switch-up is a bit weird. Theresa Randle, who played ‘Marcus’ wife ‘Theresa’ (big stretch for the character name, huh?) for the last three flicks is MIA here, having chosen to retire from acting before this one went into production. I can’t help but wonder if she took one look at this sorry excuse for a script and simply Noped the fuck out of the acting profession entirely, lest she get any of this on her. She’s awkwardly replaced by an actress named Tasha Smith, who in no way feels like the well-established character that Randle had created.
-Driving scenes look phony as hell. The previous flicks, certainly the first two, had many scenes that were actually in a vehicle, on location. Here, the blatantly phony background and neutral lighting easily betrays the fact that they’re sitting in a studio, in front of a screen, and it looked hokey as hell.
-Marcus is now just a straight-up buffoon. ‘Marcus’ has always been the clumsy, hysterical oaf of the pair, but it’s always been balanced out by moments of gravity and action, where he more than holds his own, balancing out the sillier character traits. Here, he’s an unhinged goof for the sake of him being an unhinged goof…or so it seems, all played for laughs that the character doesn’t earn. There’s a ‘try hard’ element to Lawrence’s manic and, frankly, annoying performance. Perhaps back into retirement should be his recommended career path.
-The meta-physical shit is dumb, out of place, and silly. Once, while ‘Marcus’ was croaking on the floor at the wedding, was bad enough, but now there’s metaphysical shit popping up in dream-sequences too (again, not a thing this whole franchise…but ok). At very least, I like to think that Joe Pantoliano was happy with whatever green he scored for what had to have been a day and a half of work.
-This series is now too wannabe-slick for its own good. Bad Boys, under Michael Bay’s relentlessly stylish direction, has always had a music video slickness to them, relentlessly so at times, but the two douchebags behind the wheel now push that shit to an obnoxious degree and here it backfires spectacularly, cheapening everything with gimmick after gimmick, likely trying to distract from the wet fart of a ‘story’.
-Lighting borders on garish. More pushing of what Bay started but overdoing it in unmistakable fashion. The overcooked neon and fluorescently-coloured settings don’t feel like anything you’d likely find in Real Life. Now, RL has never been a strong element for this franchise, but this was taking the ‘comic book’ look way too far.
-Marcus is now just psychotic, legit crazy. For laughs, ‘Marcus’ strolls out into traffic, convinced he’s impervious to death (for now) and his behaviour, which I think we’re supposed to find funny, is immature, irritating and at times, dangerous. Like ‘contender for his first ever straight jacket’ dangerous. He seriously seems in need of a good dose of Thorazine and that’s rough, narratively-speaking, when he’s supposed to be one of the protagonists that we’re rooting for.
-Style feels like Schumacher at his worst. Taking this franchise as a whole and finding another that could run parallel in creative process / trajectory and critical reception on release, the one that instantly came to mind was the original Tim Burton / Joel Schumacher run of Batman films (1989 – 1997) – Burton gets the franchise off to a banging start, delivering a huge blockbuster hit right off the bat. Bay and Bad Boys 1. Then Burton comes back with more money and creative control and we get the divisive Batman Returns. Bay and Bad Boys 2. Then Burton exits the series and Schumacher steps in, clearly not understanding the assignment (despite having some amazing films in his own filmography) and slaps an obscene mess of cheesy neon and slapstick humour into the barely passable Batman Forever. Adil and Billal step in for Bay and do the same thing to Bad Boys for Life, while still showing some modicum of restraint. Schumacher comes back, unshackled, for Batman and Robin and completely shits the bed, turning the cheese and gags up to 11 and rendering the 4th installment essentially unwatchable to anyone over the age of six.
Literally.
Much the same happens here, where it all becomes a cringe-worthy mess due to a lack of creative restraint and too much money.
-Putting guns in people’s faces, for laughs. Gun owner here. PSA – Don’t EVER treat waving a firearm in someone’s face, loaded or otherwise, as a joke.
Ever.
Don’t do it.
Not funny, never will be. No fucking wonder the US has a mass shooting every other week, if this is someone’s idea of humour for the masses.
-Lawrence looks like a fucking bullfrog. Age does weird shit to us and it would appear that it has…inflated…Martin Lawrence.
-Already my least favourite. Pretty sure this got scribbled before the half-way mark.
-Helicopter crash = stupid. Not only is this scene shown in a way I’ve long hated, where the camera is all flippin and flyin around with no regard for physics, with overly-edited shots that are not allowed to ‘breath’, feeling annoyingly video game-like. Plus, it went on forever. *yawns
-I might actually hate this movie. I can only cringe, groan and roll my eyes into the back of my head without a woman being involved so many times
-CG fire. Ugh! Yea, a speeding vehicle is engulfed in flame…only it’s not, as the CLEARLY CG flames were NOT there on set. Just looked like shit. Lazy even. They easily could’ve pulled this stunt off in-camera. But noooo….!
*pukes in mouth a little
-Reggie! All right, one of the VERY few cool scenes in this P.o.S. and that was where ‘Reggie’ (Dennis Greene), the poor kid that ‘Mike’ and ‘Marcus’ relentlessly bullied in the second flick, is back as the Marine Corp-enlisted husband of ‘Marcus’ daughter. When the crew gets wind of an ambush about to occur at the ‘Burnett’ household while they are on the run, ‘Marcus’ gets hold of his constantly-beleaguered son-in-law to warn them. ‘Reggie’ proceeds to John Wick the fuck out of the intruders, dispatching 15 in a flurry of cat n mouse attacks and escapes, finally earning ‘Marcus’ respect.
-Too much pink! For some eye-searing reason, lots of contrasting-but-vivid colours show up in the overbearing colour / lighting scheme, with an overdose of the colour pink included. It was too much.
-Bad Boys song scene. Barf. During yet another ‘bruthas bonding’ moment, they lapse into another piss-poor rendition of the now classic Bad Boys song, 1987’s eventual theme to the show COPS, by the band Inner Circle, and as such was adopted into the fiction here as though the ‘original’ reality TV show also existed in the Bad Boys universe. They’ve done it before…but this was just nauseating.
-Pretty much just hate-watching, at this point. Yeah, I think I was.
-Obnoxious editing. Going back to Tony Scott, that man mastered the art of the multi-camera set-up and rapid-fire editing. His films, with a couple exceptions (looking at YOU, Man on Fire and Domino!), have a flow to the editing structure that carries the narrative in a snappy fashion without being obnoxious; it pulls you along instead of slapping you in the face. As to be expected, his imitators also delve (or try to) into the lightning-fast editing realm but often, as is the case here, they lack the finesse that the late Scott brother seemed to bring effortlessly to his propulsive technique and instead just feel choppy and rough, using the speed of the cuts to continuously move the viewer past any one moment or shot that could be questioned.
-Boo! Kind of an overall sentiment, right there. To be expected by this point, the embarrassing bullshit continued right up to the end…and beyond, if you can believe it.
-Reggie…you fourth wall-breaking muthafucka. And here we go again, with more little gimmicks that have never shown themselves anywhere in this series, this time ‘breaking the fourth wall’ (aka acknowledging us, the audience) by having ‘Reggie’, now essentially a mass murderer, finally intimidate his way through ‘Mike’ and ‘Marcus’s bullshit, pushing into a tight close-up, where he locks eyes with the camera…ending with a content, yet mildly sinister grin. But wait…there’s more!
-No! 305 BC post-credit. This one I couldn’t fucking believe. If this franchise WASN’T dead before because of this obtuse piece of shit’s previous 1 hour and 53 minutes…this proudly advertised (on the wrapper – New post credit scene!) stinger should kill Bad Boys dead in its tracks.
No bullshit, we cut back in after the final credits to what the title card says is ‘305 B.C.’. Right off the bat, I’m like “What the fuck is THIS shit?!”. All the elements of a rejected SNL skit were emerging quickly.
It continues…
We see what looks like a peasant in dusty robes leading a donkey along a dirt path. Cut to a closer shot and we see that it’s Martin Lawrence in one of the fakest-looked beards I’ve ever seen and he’s pissing and moaning away, basically just being ‘Marcus’ in ancient cosplay, berating the donkey. Going back to one of the braindead existential rants that ‘Marcus’ spews earlier in the movie, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I knew where this was going…they couldn’t POSSIBLY be that stupid, could they?
Well, lo and behold, it turns out they can…!
After this ‘Marcus’ peasant person shuts his face for two seconds, we get a tight shot of the donkey, who gives a little neigh, over which they hilariously dubbed Will Smith saying “Shut the fuck up, Marcus.”
Cut
Holy shit! Mind = blown.
Who the hell approved THAT idea, let alone financed and produced it?! They thought this would be ‘added value’ material? Someone deserves to lose their job.
Yikes!
And yet…given how awful everything before was, this is kinda perfect. There’s a coup de gras element here, a killing stroke that I have to wonder if it wasn’t deliberate. It’s like the flick ended and everyone looked around, musing “It’s bad…but is it bad ENOUGH?”.
Adil and Billal stand up – “Hold our beer.”
They probably shit this out over a weekend, just in time for the Home Video market release.
I wonder if Sony also considered pulling a Batgirl after seeing what they were presented with here. I suspect that these two dudes may outstay their current sorta / kinda honeymoon with Hollywood in rather short order, as they evidently have some maturing to do as creators, to make their mainstream output a bit more palatable than this candy-coloured ADHD garbage aimed squarely at the easily-influenced (or just plain stupid) TikTok crowd. These are not serious filmmakers and moving forward, I sense much inner indifference toward their future output…if there even is any.
All in all, Bad Boys: Ride or Die was more disappointing than I expected, or hoped for. I didn’t demand it move Heaven and Earth, but I did expect something on par with the last one, in terms of quality of content, something that I could just shut the grey matter off for and just effortlessly enjoy.
That was NOT in the cards, it would seem.
This sad excuse for a sequel got bad quickly and just kept on going down, to the point where the shitty creative choices being made became a source of cynical ongoing amusement. A barrage of WTF’ness that, after a while, truly became something to behold, only not in a good way.
Somewhere in this garbage, there’s a drinking game waiting to be discovered, a possibly lethal drinking game.
Despite the fact that I now sadly own this one on Blu ray (my inner completist is ok with that), I don’t think I can ever see myself willingly pulling this one out to watch ever again, and based on that, I can honestly say that I do NOT recommend checking this one out, ESPECIALLY if you’re a fan of the earlier ones.
Personally, I’ll just stick with the first one, #35 on my list…and key scenes from the second. I’m good with that.
It’s time for Bad Boys to go.
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