‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ 4K UHD Blu-ray (review)

In January of 2020 I walked into a public movie theater for the last time for a little more than 3 years. The film I watched?

Bad Boys For Life.

If I had known that a lockdown was imminent and that was going to be my last film in a theater for over 3 years I probably would have picked a more poignant movie.

I guess it could have been worse as my wife’s last film before the COVID lockdown was Cats.

Silver lining and all I suppose.

To be fair, I love the Bad Boys franchise. To be truly truly honest, I love Michael Bay movies.

And yes I realize that these last two BB films were not directed by The Bay.

And yet, his presence is felt all over and throughout these last two installments as he was still producing them.

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die is basically more of the same, but slightly different. The action is cranked up even more, the camera work is becoming nigh impossible to follow, and the editing would make a cocaine-addled TikToker have a seizure.

All for the basic betterment of the film I assure you.

BB:RoD picks up a few years after the events of the previous film. Captain Howard is dead, having been assassinated by the son of a Matriarchal cartel head. The killer winds up being Mike Lowry’s unbeknownst son who is now in a federal prison.

RoD kicks into high gear with Marcus and Mike late for Mike’s own wedding.

We find out that Marcus’s health is in question after decades of poor eating decisions. Marcus Burnett has a heart attack at the wedding. In a slightly surreal, slightly Black Pantheresque existential meeting with Captain Howard (check cashed and performance phoned in by Joey Pants here, sadly) Howard tells him it isn’t his time and has brought Marcus back from the brink of death. Marcus is forced to “take it easy” and to make healthier decisions in all his habits. He has other ideas as he now thinks he’s invincible and unkillable.

Eventually, we discover that someone is trying to frame the late Captain Howard of embezzling millions of dollars and trying to cover up a huge internal conspiracy within the police department. That he was colluding with the drug cartels that he spent, and literally gave his life to putting away.

Obviously this wasn’t going to happen on Lowry and Burnett’s watch.

The Bad Boys rally for one more hurrah to clear their boss’s name, as well as their own. This web of intrigue and deceit has swallowed them up as well. All their loved ones and colleagues are now in danger. They must uncover this plot that may very well go all the way to the top of Miami’s political infrastructure.

This movie is a beautiful, beautiful, disaster.

On the one hand it has everything that I wanted from a Bad Boys movie. It has the humor I have come to love as well as the over the top action I have come to expect. On the other hand, it has so much I didn’t need. There was so much more other… stuff?

At certain points in the movie I didn’t even know what I was even watching.

Uneven barely skims the surface of what this movie is.

The aforementioned existentially impaired Marcus is definitely suffering from PTSD from his near death experience is a strange flex. The entire film plays out as if directors Adil & Bilall, who did a brilliant job on the last one, were handed a stack of post it notes by writers Chris Bremner and Will Beall, who co-wrote Bad Boys For Life, and told the directors to “make a movie”.

What we end up with is a jumbled, mish-mosh of Bay-esque signature camerawork stylings like the low angle Miami sign shot and the 360 low angle spin around while the actors stand in slow motion shot. However, we get even more of those super annoying drone footage that is digitally slowed down then sped up shots of Miami.

All the while two nearly 60 year old men run around like 30 year olds while the 30 year olds all act like 20 year olds.

Though they never quite hit Fast and the Furious level of bonkers insanity and physics defying implausibility. The franchise, if they keep making these films, will eventually get there. And honestly… I am here for it.

I want a shirtless Will Smith at 70 years old running and jumping across the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur whilst firing two .50 cal Barrett rifles. while Martin Lawrence HALO jumps with his walker, strapped with rockets, from space to catch the guys who have kidnapped their great granddaughters because they were involved in a high stakes game of Keno in 1999 and it is the great nephew of the man they put away who wants his just dues.

Seriously though, this was enjoyable and another “turn your brain off” and watch the stupid, fun shootouts and stunts. See the annoying good guys win and the predictable bad guys get eaten by alligators or whatever.

Extras include featurettes, gag reel, outtakes & bloopers, deleted scenes and previews.

I will end with this one nugget. The entire movie is worth the price of admission, as the old folks say, just for the twenty-one year payoff to a very long running joke. It is so damn satisfying and IF they do continue this franchise I sure as sh*t hope they utilize that character/actor more.

If you are a long time fan of the series then you’ll know it when you see it.

Bad Boys,
Bad Boys,
Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do,
When they won’t stop making these film for you?