These Bad Boys are good fun
Bad Boys For Life (R13, 124 mins) Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★1⁄2
Like a band you thought had broken up decades ago suddenly turning up on tour, movie franchises we assumed had long run their natural course are being resurrected, as Hollywood flails around, looking for anything that might be a surefire hit in an era where there is no such thing as a guaranteed blockbuster.
And the name recognition and residual affection that still exists for Bad Boys is immense, even 17 long years after the last film in the series wrapped. For a lot of people, the original two movies are a highwater mark of good, dumb, fun buddy comedies that has never been surpassed. The first film, released in 1995, was also the directorial debut of Michael Bay. So there’s that to, err, thank Bad Boys for.
But no-one walks in to a sequel in a 1990s-spawned franchise in 2020 expecting to be much impressed. I certainly didn’t, even with Belgian wonderboys Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah sharing the director’s chair. Their sophomore feature Black was a riot of stylised violence and hard-bitten humour. But surely the demands of the market would smooth their signature style into something generic and bland.
So I’m actually kinda delighted to report back that this Bad Boys scrubs up well. It might even be the best film of the bunch. A decent action comedy needs to get two things right: the chemistry and the choreography. Bad Boys For Life nails the former. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence still have that unfakeable ability to riff and improv off each other, that has got even better as the two men have mellowed with age and grown into their own skins. Smith might be the bigger movie star, but its Lawrence who does most of the comedic heavy lifting here and makes Smith’s brand of narcissism more palatable in every scene.
And the choreography; the fights, chases, set ups and set pieces that the paper-thin plot exists to contain, are all perfectly well done. The camera angles are inventive, the CGI is well integrated and the action is intense and frequent.
I’m not here to tell you Bad Boys For Life is going to be on my top 10 of 2020, but if it sounds like what you want to see, I reckon you’ll go home happy with how you spent your money.