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Bad Boys for Life
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return for what is hopefully the final installment of the franchise, 2020's Bad Boys for Life, an overblown cops and robbers movie that falters because of a problematic screenplay and leads who are just too old to be making these kind of movies.
The film opens with Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) celebrating the birth of his first grandchild and seriously contemplating retirement. Marcus has to put his retirement on hold when partner Mike Lowrey (Smith) gets shot and the investigation into the shooting leads to a mother and son operating an international drug cartel.
The long winded screenplay spends too much time establishing the differences between Mike and Marcus, which were already made crystal clear in the first film, way back in 1995. The dialogue is straight out of a million other crime dramas, which is another problem with this story that differs from the first film...the humor that permeated the first two films is non-existent here, though Martin is given what is supposedly all of the funny lines in the film, but I didn't find much humor here.
There was also a giant plot hole that nagged at me throughout. Mike gets shot and we see Marcus and his fellow officers gathered around his bed as he hangs on for dear life. All of a sudden, the story skips six months and Mike asks his boss (Joe Pantoliano) to work on the case. It appears that the force has made little or no progress regarding who shot Mike except for the make of the bullets removed from Mike's body. What the hell were these guys doing for six months? Not to mention the reveal of who these mother and son drug lords are, telegraphed throughout the film, making the actual reveal seriously anti-climactic.
For me though, the main problem with this movie was that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are just too old for this kind of hardcore action/adventure. Lawrence, in particular, who appears seriously out of shape, seems to be huffing and puffing throughout, looking like he could collapse from exhaustion at any moment. Needless to say, with Smith and Lawrence involved, this film was afforded a huge budget utilized on first rate production values, but the hard to swallow story and over the hill stars in denial of same really hurt this one.
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return for what is hopefully the final installment of the franchise, 2020's Bad Boys for Life, an overblown cops and robbers movie that falters because of a problematic screenplay and leads who are just too old to be making these kind of movies.
The film opens with Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) celebrating the birth of his first grandchild and seriously contemplating retirement. Marcus has to put his retirement on hold when partner Mike Lowrey (Smith) gets shot and the investigation into the shooting leads to a mother and son operating an international drug cartel.
The long winded screenplay spends too much time establishing the differences between Mike and Marcus, which were already made crystal clear in the first film, way back in 1995. The dialogue is straight out of a million other crime dramas, which is another problem with this story that differs from the first film...the humor that permeated the first two films is non-existent here, though Martin is given what is supposedly all of the funny lines in the film, but I didn't find much humor here.
There was also a giant plot hole that nagged at me throughout. Mike gets shot and we see Marcus and his fellow officers gathered around his bed as he hangs on for dear life. All of a sudden, the story skips six months and Mike asks his boss (Joe Pantoliano) to work on the case. It appears that the force has made little or no progress regarding who shot Mike except for the make of the bullets removed from Mike's body. What the hell were these guys doing for six months? Not to mention the reveal of who these mother and son drug lords are, telegraphed throughout the film, making the actual reveal seriously anti-climactic.
For me though, the main problem with this movie was that Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are just too old for this kind of hardcore action/adventure. Lawrence, in particular, who appears seriously out of shape, seems to be huffing and puffing throughout, looking like he could collapse from exhaustion at any moment. Needless to say, with Smith and Lawrence involved, this film was afforded a huge budget utilized on first rate production values, but the hard to swallow story and over the hill stars in denial of same really hurt this one.