Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) Review

After the entertaining Bad Boys: For Life came out a few years ago it was guaranteed that we would be getting a fourth film in the franchise and here it is in Bad Boys: Ride or Die and I saw it today with this being my review. The premise of the film sees Mike & Marcus on the run after their former Captain is accused of working with the Cartels. 

Main Character

Will Smith as Mike Lowry and Martin Lawrence as Marcus Burnett are what carries this film and the chemistry that they have together. They both look like they are having a blast and their enthusiasm and energy is what I really enjoyed. Though, I can't deny that both characters have story arcs and they both come out of nowhere and are a bit bizarre and hold the movie and these characters back. 

Supporting Characters

Paola Nunez makes her return as Rita and I enjoyed her character, she is an old ally of Mike's and she has taken over the captains role and I thought she gave a pretty solid performance and I enjoyed watching her. 

But the rest of the cast aren't great, Jacob Scipio is back as Armando and this guy has very little charisma and intrigue about him. This comes after a bland performance in the previous film and it just seems this guy can't live up to the hype of taking over from Will Smith which this film possibly wants. 

Vanessa Hudgens as Kelly and Alexander Ludwig as Dorn return for this film in a clearly reduced role and they are pretty much given nothing to do except being some low level comic relief which doesn't really work when the main duo are way more entertaining. 

The film really wastes the talent of Ioan Gruffudd and Rhea Seehorn with these generic characters when they are capable of so much better. Seehorn in particular is an amazing actress with her work as Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul being Emmy worthy, hopefully she gets better roles then this in the future. 

Story

The previous film tries to tell a more personal story and had some success but this film falls flat on its face. There is one scene at the beginning of the film that takes away the whole intrigue for the film and I wish it never happened as it would make the film much better. Both main characters story arcs are dumb and the villains motivation is basically money which is super dull and made me not really care about anything that happened to anybody in this film as it was incredibly predictable. 

Script

There is no denying that this film has some pretty chuckle worthy moments and I think I was doing this pretty consistently throughout the film which was nice to see. But some repetitive jokes fall a bit flat and really aren't as funny as the writers think they are. Also the drama is really not there, as I said I never really cared about any of the characters towards the end and the weaker script doesn't help. 

Style

The style of the film is pretty similar, there are some good high octane action scenes that are a lot of fun and in particular I love the sound of the guns and loud they are, it makes it feel like you are in the action scenes. However, there are other action scenes where the camera is shaking everywhere and I couldn't tell what was going on, there is also one scene where for some reason they try to make it look like a video game and it looks incredibly cheap and tacky. 

Overall

Overall, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is a below average film that for me is the worst of the franchise. It can't follow up from the previous film and this is probably the end of this franchise and that is probably a good thing. If you are a fan of this franchise, maybe wait until it goes on streaming, if not then give it a miss. 

Rating - 4/10