Bad Boys for Life

When "Bad Boys" was released in 1995, who knew that the fluffy buddy cop film would really take off? It took off so much that a sequel in 2003 was released, and with that, we now are offered "Bad Boys for Life". If they keep releasing these films, the two lead stars are going to be too old to get the energy it takes to tackle such a physical franchise. 

Detective Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Detective Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) have to confront new issues (career changes and midlife crises), as they reluctantly join the newly created elite team AMMO including Rita (Paola Nunez), Dorn (Alex Ludwig) and Rafe (Charles Melton) of the Miami police department to take down the ruthless Armando Armas (Jacob Scipio), the vicious leader of a Miami drug cartel. 
It turns out that Armas' mother, Isabel Aretas (Kate del Castillo) has it in for several associates of her husband's whereas they doubled crossed him, so, of course, revenge must be extracted. So she brings her young 24 year old son to do her dirty work. Also Mike Lowrey is on the hit list as well because of a past incidence that rocked her world. 

Others to round out the cast are Vanessa Hudgens as Kelly, Joe Pantoliano as Captain Howard, Nicky Jam as Zway-Lo and Bianca Bethune as Megan Burnett. 

This was intensely yet humorously directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah ("Image" '14, "Black" '15, "Gangsta" '18) plus TV and shorts. This was slickly directed in the same vein as Michael Bay's 1995 Bad Boys which was crucial in convincing the audience that these two cops were still the same. It had the same feel, locales and wisecracks as its two predecessors possessed. Seems like these filmmakers didn't have much to do but copy Bay's work, but creating different situations keeping a similar feel as the original can be quite challenging in that the characters must carry the same personality makeup and that can be difficult and hold the audience's attention. It was interestingly written by Chris Bremner, Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan, based on a story by Craig and Carnahan, which is based on characters created by George Gallo. Not sure why Bremner received top billing for writing since this it is his first screenplay--maybe because he has "Sick Day", "National Treasure 3" and "Bad Boys 4" all announced, but both Craig and Carnahan have a great deal of screenwriting experience. They all have films announced, completed, in post-production, etc, and I believe this is why this film was certainly better than I ever projected it would be. Was this an Academy Award caliber film? Of course not, but this is not why films like this are produced as much as they are great escape films that one can enjoy with a bag of popcorn, and for this reason, this was a well thought out premise. The one thing that I had a problem with was that it was a bit long-in-the-tooth--about 10 minutes could've been shaved off the final running time and still give its audience plenty of info to work from. The other stars of this were the stunt coordinators: Mike Gunther and Spiro Razatos. They made the incredible stunts look effortless, and they certainly helped create that frenetic feel of the production. 

Unless you're living under a rock, there will be a "Bad Boys 4" coming later, so watch the end so you can see the small piece of film indicating this. For the type of film that it is, this has it all: action, explosions, humor and excitement. Not a great film, but certainly looks great on the large screen. 

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                           Rated: R                                             124mins.