Dave Gray
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« on: June 13, 2024, 01:54:36 am » |
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Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
Premise: When their deceased captain's name is tied to drug cartels and destroys his legacy, two Miami detectives try to clear his name, leading to their going on the run with some unlikely partners after upsetting those holding the strings.
Ratings: I can't believe how much I liked this.
I can't really review this without giving my take on the Bad Boys franchise. I had never seen any of these movies until relatively recently. I think the first one was fine -- kind of a charismatic buddy cop movie, but it wasn't really my thing. I have the unpopular opinion of thinking that Bad Boys 2 was outright bad. Because I have no nostalgia for it, I found it offensively sophomoric and toxic. I just think it aged really poorly and the character of Mike was just super unlikable to me. The charisma was gone because the leads are fighting with each other, too. And it's 30 minutes longer than the other movies in the franchise. I realize that I'm an outlier and that's the most popular movie of the series. The third movie from a few years ago was my favorite and the leads have matured some, but it also leaned into what it was and the series started to become supernatural.
Now, on to Bad Boys 4 -- it's really a great action movie. And it's great because of tone and variety.
This is almost a body-swap movie in that the plot disarms Will Smith and gives the confidence to Martin Lawrence. That really worked for me and I thought that Martin Lawrence was the standout. He was really funny. Also, it made Will Smith's character a more relatable, likable person. And though there was still trash-talk between the two, it felt based in them caring for each other more than they cared for themselves.
The plot is dumb, but in the best way possible. This movie knows what it is and it does unrealistic stuff to set up cool things, but it just wears it on its sleeve. I laughed at a line where the duo are warned that the bad guys "set up a base at an abandoned amusement park." That's some Joker-level silliness, but because the tone is right, you just laugh and go for it, because you know you're going to get a fun action payoff.
And you do.
The action in this movie is super varied and always interesting. Each sequence has its own feel and does something different. I would say that it has gimmicks, except it just does so many things and in so many different ways that you never get bored of anything. Some examples:
- Disturbing, dramatic villain introduction
- Glass elevator fight in close-quarters, filmed from outside the elevator from all angles, while it's moving between floors.
- Action sequence where there's essentially a monster loose and it plays out like a horror scene.
- Sequence in the cargo bay of a crashing helicopter.
- Racing sequence with cars on fire.
- Drone attack sequence from the perspective of the drones.
- John Wick-style action, told by going in and out of a CCTV feed.
- First person gunfight scene, where you're looking down the barrels of the guns.
- Hand to hand combat using improvised weapons in a prison.
- Slow motion shootouts with comedic elements.
These directors really threw everything at the wall. And it's not just the action, but there are several other scenes that are very artfully done that include medical emergencies and forays into the afterlife.
There is also a meta aspect, where a lot of this movie is about Will Smith having grown as a person, admitting his wrongs, accepting that he's older and can't be doing stupid shit, and then the movie addresses the Chris Rock slap, in its own way. Plus, so much of it is a love letter, with a bunch of payoffs to stuff from the previous movies.
Maybe I was just in the right mood, maybe it was because the crowd was really into it, but I had a great time with this movie, not even being a big fan of the series. It's way better than it had any right to be and it's the best Bad Boys movie by a mile.
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