Bad Boys For Life: Wait, This Movie Is... Pretty Solid!
Will Smith is back with a... January movie? A reboot? The third movie in a franchise? Well, this could be bad. But is it?
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. (via Google)
JeffDLowe (78/100): In the first surprise of 2020, ‘Bad Boys For Life’ bucks the trend of January movies being dumpster fires with a great addition to the beloved buddy cop franchise. Does it have its faults? Sure, but the newest Bad Boys movie will please fans and even doubters of the rebooted property.
Both of the Michael Bay Bad Boys movies are fun, there is no denying that, but it is at times hard to ignore the classic Bay-schlock that accompanies them. They’re loud, obnoxious and dumb to a point where the director likely weighs the movie down to an extent. While there was some self-awareness in those movies, it is far more present in ‘Bad Boys For Life’, and that is one of its biggest strengths. The balance between humor, fun and serious action is, for the most part, a pretty spot on in this third movie. Overall, it has a really solid story and an enjoyable villain.
I’ll tell you what, it’s also nice to see Will Smith in an awesome movie again. Sure, ‘Aladdin’ was decent and his version of the Genie was a good surprise, but he has been on a brutal streak of bland or flat-out bad movies in the last 10-plus years. I hope Smith embraces going out there, not holding back, and having a blast with his movies. It should also be mentioned that Martin Lawrence slipped right back into his role with great fashion as well, you’d never know that they haven’t done a Bad Boys movie in over 15 years.
It goes without saying that ‘Bad Boys For Life’ isn’t without some flaws. The movie falls back on some of the cliches that make Michael Bay so well-known (young directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, also doing ‘Beverly Hills Cop 4’, did a pretty decent job in the directing chair). It should also not come as a surprise that the movie, which drags a tough towards the end of its two-hour runtime, also leans on quite a bit of nostalgia. ‘Bad Boys For Life’ isn’t perfect, a lot of what makes the franchise enjoyable is the craziness, but, again, this time around it has an awareness that masks its issues as a movie.
I’d be absolutely lying if I told you I was looking forward to this movie. The first ‘Bad Boys’ is a classic for what it is, but I was never a huge fan of the second movie, so a third movie, years after its predecessor, didn’t sound overly intriguing. Boy was I glad to be wrong, in a month known for dogshit movies, ‘Bad Boys For Life’ sticks out in a great way.
KenJac (69/100): One of the best Michael Bay impressions I’ve ever seen, ‘Bad Boys For Life’ exceeded my low expectations and ended up being probably the most entertaining movie of this short year so far. It’s very simple, funny and well made. Is it going to blow you away from a film standpoint? Well, no. But that’s not why movies like these are made, and I think this deserves all of the praise it’s getting.
The returning cast of Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, and Theresa Randle are all as good as in the previous movies. At first, it sort of felt like Lawrence, who I recently loved in ‘The Beach Bum’, was mailing it in a bit. He turned it around as the movie went on, and really caught a groove that I liked. The new cast of Paola Núñez, Alexander Ludwig and Charles Melton were all fine but didn’t add a crazy amount. Vanessa Hudgens and DJ Khaled sort of took me out of it a little, but not too much.
The plot is very basic, which is not an insult. Sequels sometimes try to overcomplicate things in order to seem original, which rarely works. Luckily, this movie knows its audience and doesn’t try to be something it’s not. Love that. The action, both shootouts and hand-to-hand, were awesome. The CGI looks solid and the score lent itself to the movie perfectly, reminding me a ton of ‘Mission: Impossible - Fallout’, probably because both movies have the same composer (Lorne Balfe).
Fans of the Bad Boys franchise and good action movies will love this, and it’s a very easy watch. No frills, nothing too complicated. Good shit! The only problem is the wasted title 'Bad Boys 4 Life’ for the sequel, which is already in development.
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The movie is not yet Officially Buttered, but it is close and will come down to the score from Trillballins and our Audience. Make sure to rate all 2020 and 2019 movies on a scale of 0-100 in the links below…
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