Old-school cops Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett team up to take down the vicious leader of a Miami drug cartel. Newly created elite team AMMO of the Miami police department along with Mike and Marcus go up against the ruthless Armando Armas.
When the original “Bad Boys” came out in 1995, it turned TV star Will Smith into an A-List movie star. He continued to knock out blockbusters for years to come; “Independence Day,” “Men in Black,” “Enemy of the State,” “Men in Black II,” and “Bad Boys II” but like most Hollywood stars, his career eventually began to stall as new and upcoming younger actors began to take over. Films like “Men in Black 3,” “After Earth,” and “Suicide Squad” couldn’t put him back on top again and when word came out that Sony Pictures was working on a third installment in the Bad Boys series, even Smith’s most loyal and diehard fans were not very enthusiastic.
Well, fear not people, if you enjoyed the first two movies, you will love “Bad Boys for Life.” I was cautiously optimistic going to the press screening and went in with very low expectations but wound up having a blast. With so many older actors returning to franchises that made them famous, Stallone with Rocky and Rambo, Ford with Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Blade Runner, Schwarzenegger with The Terminator, and many of those new iterations falling flat, that is exactly what I feared for this film but within the first twenty minutes, those fears were laid to rest. It was such a welcome relief to once again see Smith and Lawrence bickering back and forth like two old biddies and it felt genuine. Never once did it feel like they had to work hard at trying to recreate their friendship, they both still have charisma, individually and together but it is when they are together that the movie really comes to life.
Detectives Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are still policing the streets of Miami as partners after twenty-five years. With Marcus’ daughter about to be married and a baby on the way, he informs Mike that he is planning on retiring, that life is too short and he wants to be around for his grandchild. Naturally, Mike is upset but Marcus is adamant about quitting the force. Before he has a chance to do so, Mike is gunned down on the street in front of him by a mysterious assassin on a motorbike and then rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Over the next six months, Mike pulls through and once he’s back on his feet, Marcus retires. Mike then insists on joining a new department called AMMO (Advanced Miami Metro Operations), led by an old flame of his, Rita (Paola Nuñez), who heads up a new group of young, tech-savvy police officers charged with investigating Mike’s attempted murder. When Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) hears that Mike wants to join AMMO, he flatly refuses, stating that he cannot investigate his own shooting but when more dead bodies begin turning up on the streets with a link to one of Mike’s old cases, Howard allows him to join as an observer. But when someone close to Mike and Marcus winds up dead, Marcus joins the force one last time and teams up with Mike where they head off to Mexico to confront a face from Mike’s past who may just hold the key to all the recent murders, including the attempt on his own life.
Michael Bay, who directed the first two movies, returns in a producer capacity this time around and even has a small role at Marcus’s daughter’s wedding but the film is directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, two Belgian filmmakers new to the blockbuster scene and directors to keep your eye on. They are known for directing low-budget, unflinching crime dramas such as “Image,” “Black,” and “Gangsta,” but “Bad Boys for Life” is their first foray into big-budget filmmaking and I have to give kudos to Sony for hiring them because they bring a sense of gritty realism that was sorely missing from Bay’s previous two iterations. Gone also is Bay’s erratic and frenetic camera movements, which sometimes bordered on nauseating and here, while the movie still has Bay’s fingerprints on it, they are not as pronounced and he gives both directors a wide berth of maneuverability. And maneuver they do. I would say that this is the best in the series as there is a bigger connection between Mike and Marcus and there is much more humor. The action is scaled back too because, let’s face it, when has Michael Bay’s onscreen mayhem ever come across as believable? While there are some terrific set-pieces, including an explosive finale, nothing ever seems too far-fetched, even for a movie of this scale, and that’s saying something. In the end, “Bad Boys for Life” sets out to do one thing and one thing only: entertain. And you have my word, it does exactly that.
In Theaters Friday, January 17th
