Movie review: 'Bad Boys 4' fails to recapture Will Smith, Martin Lawrence glory

LOS ANGELES, June 4 (UPI) -- There still has not been a good sequel to 1995's Bad Boys. While not as vulgar as Bad Boys 2, the fourth film, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, in theaters Friday, still fails to recapture the magic of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence's debut as action heroes.

Miami PD partners Mike Lowery (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) investigate allegations that their late Capt. Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who was killed in Part 3, was corrupt. Since they're on the right track, the villains frame Lowery and Burnett, too.

At this point, Lawrence is playing Marcus as a cartoon, slobbering over snack food against his dietary restrictions, crying in his speech at Mike's wedding. Smith plays Mike sincerely, but his comic barbs are weak, like asking Marcus if he needs his blankie or comparing an emotional Marcus to Oprah Winfrey.

After having a heart attack due to his bad habits, Marcus has a new lease on life for this entry. Believing himself immortal, Marcus now takes unnecessary risks, but still as a buffoon.

It would be impossible to recreate 1995, when Lawrence and Smith were wrapping up their hit sitcoms and were hungry to prove they could be movie stars. They've returned to each sequel as established movie stars, even if Smith needs a comeback after his Oscar scandal, so the hunger is gone.

Some of the misogyny one would hope was left in the '90s still emerges. Mike's new wife, Christine (Melanie Liburd), is said to be his physical therapist from when he was shot in the previous film.

Christine is new to this film, and she only exists to be threatened by the villains. There are no Christine scenes for 75 minutes until that happens.

Villain James McGrath (Eric Dane) threatens the custodian of Howard's accounts and his bikini-clad mistress, who remains scantily clad while threatened with violence that ultimately occurs. Violence happens in action movies, but a one-scene character need not be ogled before the act.

As an action-comedy, Ride or Die has some inventive sequences. A shootout in an art gallery spills many colorful pieces of debris. An airplane hijacking combines many suspenseful elements, including freeing a prisoner from a cage before it falls out the back, and they still have to land.

Returning directors Adil and Bilall are loyal to the Bad Boys style, making sure to spin the camera around every character at least once. Their stylistic flourishes become more glaring because they are not motivated by story.

In action scenes, the camera sometimes will turn sideways. A shot from Mike's point of view shows him holding his gun in front of the camera like the video game Doom.

The franchise has been all bravado since Bad Boys 2, so it's no longer out of character to show off without a narrative justification.

The ensemble of Bad Boys has grown so large that Ride or Die struggles to give new Miami officers Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) much to do. The son Mike discovered in the last film, Armando (Jacob Scipio), gets more, including an effectively brutal prison fight.

Marcus's son-in-law, Reggie (Dennis Greene), finally gets to be badass after being the butt of jokes in Bad Boys 2 and 3. The filmmakers did get Reba McEntire to sing a song for one of the film's jokes, so that's impressive.

And good for Pantoliano for getting some scenes in another film after his character was killed off. He gets more screen time than just the two prerecorded video messages to Mike and Marcus.

This film invents the new character of Howard's daughter, Judy (Rhea Seehorn), a U.S. Marshal pursuing Mike and Marcus. That really goes inordinately out of its way to connect a purely expository character to Howard.

It is nice to see an action movie filmed on location. Even if it is Georgia and Canada doubling for Miami, that's better than filming in front of screens.

If the characters are fun, any adventure they go on will be fun. But in Bad Boys: Ride or Die, potentially fun action is weighed down by characters doing tired schtick.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.