Bad Boys for Life; a surprisingly heartfelt sequel to the Bad Boys franchise

Bad Boys for Life sees Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return to their iconic roles as

Miami PD detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, 17 years after the release of Bad Boys II. Like a true sequel, this film is packed with recurring jokes, characters, and references that will bring a smile to the face of anyone who considers themselves a fan of the first two films. This film free of director Michael Bay (director of the first two films), shines brighter than both Bad Boys and Bad Boys II. Much like Bumblebee to the Transformer’s series, Bad Boys for life improves drastically with the departure of Michael Bay. Where the first two films struggle from a lack of concentration and focus, Bad Boys for Life excels. If this film is lacking anything from its original creator Michael Bay it’s a sense of unique, stylistic action. The action given in this film is fine, and it’s emotionally driven however it’s missing the pulsing camera, breakneck editing, and notorious explosions of action extraordinaire, Michael Bay, though the trade of stylistic action for emotional stakes, and a less dominant plot is a refreshing one.

Without divulging too much of the plot details, the main conflict and drive of the film is much more relevant to the character’s lives and allows for them to have more of a personal stake in the story than the first two films. The dynamic between Smith & Lawrence is as strong as ever and a large portion of the film’s fun is their familiarity with each other as well as their dichotomous nature. One its most interesting, humorous and ultimately humbling aspects is it’s understanding that the two leads are not young hotshots anymore. The entire emotional drive is surrounded by the fact that Marcus & Mike are no longer 25 years old. The film doesn’t pretend like its characters are young and exciting, it revels in the fact that they are old and approaching the downslope of the proverbial hill. This idea not only provides some really strong emotional moments, it also provides a lot of humor, especially from Lawrence’s character Marcus. The boldest aspect about this film however is that it’s not afraid to pull the emotional strings and do something unexpected, always in a way that drives the story. The main drawback however is that it sometimes uses generic, and blustering action set-pieces to pad the runtime and move the story along. To that point the conclusion is incredibly preposterous. The emotional stakes and drive are abundantly present, but the film still feels the need create this absurdly grand action set piece filled with a crashing helicopter, a pit of fire and way too much focus on extraneous characters. Moving passed the narrative beats of the film, aesthetically it doesn’t establish itself as anything visually unique, dynamic or particularly interesting. Cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert’s work is very simple, the film relies much more on its words than its visual techniques. I wouldn’t advocate going into Bad Boys for Life expecting some type of complex visual journey, however it behooves any film to put more care and effort into the cinematography as it is a visual medium. The action too is more ‘Fast and Furious’ than ‘John Wick’. Given the emotional and personal stakes, more lowkey, well-choreographed, visceral action would’ve served the film far better than the guns and explosions, but a few of the chase scenes and shootouts did provide a fun dose of adrenaline.

Bad Boys for Life picks up a franchise dormant for 17 years and breathes life into it. It manages to take the core of what made the first two films enjoyable and create a more honest, personal and humbling journey than the franchise was capable of up to this point. Instead of trying to make a 2000s throwback, filled with middle-aged men acting like 25-year old rookie cops, it follows the natural progression of the characters we know and love and it’s all for the better. While still tending to get loud, and noisy and lacking a true visual voice, it provides an exciting, funny, and heartfelt journey for Mike Lowrey and Marcus Bennet. We ride together, we die together. Bad Boys for Life!

Score: 3.5/5