Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Bad Boys 3 has been in the works for over ten years, with the script phase beginning in 2009. Columbia Pictures assigned Peter Craig, co-writer of Ben Affleck’s The Town, for the first pass, though none of the principal players had signed on to return at this point. However, they were all amenable if there was a good story, and if the studio would pay for their higher asking prices.
Martin Lawrence kept his schedule as open as can be for the return, waiting on the rest of the main cast and creative talent to get on board with a commitment. “Designated Survivor” creator and Safe House scribe David Guggenheim did some uncredited screenplay work. In 2016, Joe Carnahan announced that he was revising the Peter Craig script and would also be its director for a 2017 release, dubbed Bad Boys for Life, with a fourth film to be released in 2019. However, production delays and creative differences with Will Smith caused Carnahan to vacate the director’s chair in favor of helming a Latino-led superhero film he co-wrote called El Chicano. His addition of the hotshot young AMMO team remains through the Bremner revision, so Carnahan retained a screenplay credit.
In 2017, Will Smith used the opportunity for Sony to find a new director by signing on to Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin (after contemplating starring in Tim Burton’s Dumbo), pushing forward the production date yet again, as Craig Bremner did the final revision of the script. Principal filming began in Atlanta, and later outdoor shots for action sequences were done in various Miami locations, where the film takes place.
In 2018, Moroccan-born Belgian-trained filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah signed on to direct, having impressed Jerry Bruckheimer and Will Smith with their prior effort, Black, in 2015. Joe Carnahan occupied the director’s chair at that time, but when he left, Bruckheimer approached them to take it up. According to Will Smith, Bay was well out of their price range to return as the director, so they took a chance on talented but far less expensive options. Although relative newcomers to Hollywood, they pack heir film with the same aesthetic vibe and penchant for personality-based humor that Michael Bay did in the first two entries. They deliberately have constructed Bad Boys for Life as an homage beyond just Bad Boys, dipping into the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard series, Tony Scott-directed flicks, and many tropes found in over-the-top action-thrillers from the 1990s. More practical stunts and less green screening, delivering similarly hi-octane, low-brow entertainment, and it all looks aesthetically pleasing.
That emphasis on aesthetics means that thy cast the film for looks over talent. Everything looks hi-tech and eye-popping. Police station departments look like they are in multi-million dollar command centers. Computer terminals generate all of the bloops, bleeps, random numbers, and whizbang doodads that no one in real life would tolerate from their Google searches. Unless you’re into Bay’s films for the way he tries to peek up the skirt or down the blouses of his female cast members, you won’t miss his style. If you miss Bay anyway, just know that he does make a cameo appearance in the film.
However, their handling of the characters and drawing out solid performances by their leads seem to be better all around. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence worked extensively with potential supporting actors in a “chemistry test” to see how well they play off of one another, leading to the casting of Hudgens, Ludwig, and Melton. Reggaeton’s Nicky Jam also auditioned but had an inside track to the role due to his prior relationship with Will Smith, who he did a song with for FIFA World Cup called “Live It Up.” Smith took a pay cut for an executive producer role through the deal his Overbrook Entertainment has with Sony Pictures, getting a percentage of the profit in exchange for lower up-front costs.
The banter is still here, and it is Bad Boys for Life’s saving grace, just enough of it providing the requisite smiles and laughs for longtime fans to come away feeling like the wait was worth it. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence work so well together that they are worth watching even when what else is going on is not remotely interesting. Smith continues to play the macho shoot-first cop Mike Lowrey, not missing a step despite being twenty-five years older than his debut in the franchise. Well, maybe one step is missed – he decided he is beyond doing all of his stunts this time out.
Lawrence gets the biggest laughs lampooning life as family man Marcus Burnett who craves putting the dangerous life behind him to fulfill his new role as a grandfather. Lowery gets gunned down by up-and-coming Miami crime kingpin Armando Armas who pops a few rounds into the cop at the direction of his ruthless mother Isabel, getting revenge on all of those cops and lawyers who took down her drug-lord husband years before. Unlike the never-subtle Michael Bay, Adil and Bilall show cleverness in their delivery. A handful of their scenes rise to the top of the franchise, such as a montage that depicts the different lives of vengeful Mike and comfortable-in-retirement Marcus; as Mike cranks down on a gear shift during a hot pursuit, Marcus pulls up on the lever to kick up the footrest of his recliner. More scenes like these would be welcome, yet remain more the exception than the norm.
Due to Marcus making a pact with God to hang up the “bad boys” life, if Mike pulls through, he refuses to Jon forces with his longtime partner on exacting revenge on Armando. To help supplement the cover, loose-cannon Mike teams up with the by-the-book ‘AMMO’ division of the force, a group of young guns with high-tech weapons. Of course, when tragedy strikes once again, Marcus gets off of his recliner for one more chance at the guts and glory of the “bad boys.”
Instead, Bad Boys for Life benefits from the infusion of new blood from the directing team of Adil and Bilall. The laughs and action, and a couple of surprisingly well-done emotional beats, land like a film in the Fast & Furious franchise. The film goes astray during a finale that bites off more than it can chew in the story department. Black-magic witchery and a backstory to Mike Lowrey’s past needlessly ties him to the bad guys in ways that raise far more questions than it answers by the time it rolls credits. Plus, there are unfavorable echoes in the reveals of Will Smith’s previous film, The Gemini Man, which is further connected by both movies sharing the same composer, Lorne Balfe.
Much it plays with the same formula and resurrects all of the ‘greatest hits’ you’d expect from the first two entries. The new gags are common ones about growing older: Viagra riffs, hair color products, and needing eyeglasses to see what where you’re shooting your pistol. Much of this is in service of pleasing the fans, and one can’t say that it doesn’t deliver the goods for those who are looking for much more than jocularity and eye-candy action sequences. Anyone looking for the franchise to transcend its formula to be something more will come away empty.
While it isn’t as good as the breakthrough 1995 film, it is closer to the spirit of Michael Bay’s original than his overly long, abysmal follow-up, Bad Boys II, one of the worst films of 2003, in my opinion. For lovers of action cinema of the 1990s, you’ll get plenty to admire, with the requisite slow-motion action sequences, the wall-to-wall soundtrack, and the nostalgia kicks in when you hear the familiar score from the first film all over again. It is thankfully over twenty minutes less in run time than Bad Boys II, but Bad Boys for Life is still twenty minutes longer than it should be to deliver maximum impact. Somewhere in this mix, a good movie yearns to break free, but it is leaden with that misguided back story for its villains, and one boss villain too many. Anytime the “Bad Boys” are off the screen, and the “Bad Guys” are on it, the film feels like it’s trying to drive with the emergency breaks on.
If you like the first two Bad Boys films, Bad Boys for Life offers plenty more for you to enjoy. While it does offer some of the best character moments and acting performances by the leads in the series thus far, good storytelling has continued to elude this franchise. Unfortunately, the levels of cartoon violence, prolonged shootouts, and explosions galore have dominated these movies so much that fans will likely never accept sacrificing the formula in pursuit of a good film, relegating Bad Boys as bad for life.
- There are two extra scenes at the beginning of the closing credits, one seeming to set things up for the inevitable sequel.
Qwipster’s rating: C+
MPAA Rated: R for strong bloody violence, language throughout, sexual references and brief drug use
Run time: 124 min.
Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Paola Nunez, Jacob Scipio, Joe Pantoliano, Kate del Castillo, Theresa Randle, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Nicky Jam
Small roles: DJ Khaled, Michael Bay
Director: Adil and Bilall (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)
Screenplay: Chris Bremner, Peter Craig, Joe Carnahan