Bad Boys for Life

Dir Adil & Bilall

Written by Peter Craig, Joe Carnahan, Chris Bremner, George Gallo.

Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Paola Núñez, Kate del Castillo, Jacob Scipio, Joe Pantoliano, Theresa Randle, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig.

Mike and Marcus are now approaching the age of retirement, with Marcus now a grandfather. After a terrifying near death experience, Mike discovers there is a hit out on him, and tries to discover who wants him dead, and it might have something to do with his past. They soon join the special unit AMMO which is run by a former flame of Mike’s.

Fairly fun third entry in the franchise, coming an astonishing seventeen years since the last movie. This time around Will Smith arrogantly gets top billing, and is joined by many of the previous cast members (Randall and Pantoliano are back for their third and reportedly final appearances) and there is a humourous appearance of Reggie from #2, now married to Marcus’ daughter Meghan.

There is a solid direction from partners Adil & Bilall, with some fun camera work, and some nods to original director Michael Bay (who has a cameo early in the film).

This gives the film a special nostalgic feel to it, and paired with the orginal theme (thank you!), as well as a great screenplay which has both heart (Captain Howards Buddhist on the horse story), and humour in it. The progression of the two characters is also fairly realistic with the pair now a bit older and wiser.

The big down for me, was the complete retcon of Mike and Marcus’ history. The story of Mike infiltrating the mafia in 1995 “before he partnered with Marcus” when in #1, set in 1995, they had been partners for six years – was just poor writing.

The villains, probably presented the biggest threat that the pair had faced in all the films, with ** spoiler ** a major character fatality midway through proceedings. I wasn’t overly sold on the “cliffhanger” ending either, and I’ll be interested to see how this is addressed in the recently filmed fourth film.

Much better than #2, and on par with #1 in terms of quality.