Bad Boys for Life ★★★
MICHAEL Bay did not direct the third Bad Boys film…but he may as well have.
Bad Boys for Life (2020) is laden with all the trademarks of Bay’s man-child career – saturated colours, quick-fire editing, camera entry to scenes from above and below characters, revolving camera, overlapping dialogue and noisy and repetitive soundtrack.
Probably the only Bay-ism the third film pulls back on a little is the constant ogling of the female form, although the directing team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (credited just as ‘Adil and Bilall’) still manage to squeeze the two main female characters into tight-fitting miniskirts for an otherwise inconsequential nightclub scene.
Like all Bay’s films, Bad Boys For Life is big, silly and noisy in every way and on a grand scale.
Why have a police car screaming through the streets of Miami to a personal hospital appointment when you can also have a police boat and police helicopter accompanying them for absolutely no discernible reason.
While my hopes weren’t high for this action/comedy to deliver much new in either genre, the 1995 original and 2003 follow-up are still highly entertaining, thanks mainly to the on-screen chemistry of stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
It’s great to report that 16 years later the pair still have that magic which elevates this new film above the typical.
Lawrence’s character, Marcus Burnett, is now a grandfather and looking towards retirement after 20-odd years tearing around the streets and being shot at, much to the annoyance of his long-term partner, Mike Lowrey (Smith), who is still single and gung-ho as ever.
The generally lacklustre story has a notorious drug cartel leader busting out of prison and targeting the police, lawyers and judges responsible for bringing her family to justice.
With Burnett pulling back from active duty, Lowery initially works the case with a new, supposedly elite team of young, innovative police officers, but when he is also targeted the ‘Bad Boys’ have to reform to ‘bring the pain’.
The story has some ludicrous twists that are simply used in service of creating the basis for another film. The action, however, is pretty good, apart from the initial chase scene in which you can clearly see computer-generated bystanders.
The main attraction was always going to be Smith and Lawrence in the guise of these characters and, in that regard, their by-play and chemistry still delivers.