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A Review of "Bad Boys for Life (2020)"

 

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Bad Boys was the film that pretty much launched Will Smith into action fame. The first two films which were directed by Michael Bay were the most Michael Bayest film ever. Both films had cringe dialogue with fart jokes, sex jokes, penis jokes and treating women like objects with the dumbest and pervert camera shots for women with lots of explosions. Also an incredible amount of F-bombs. Honestly, the Bad Boys movies suck a lot and it baffles me that it managed to even get a third movie. However, this time it isn’t directed by Michael Bay and that was enough to get me interested in this movie.

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25 years after the first movie I got to say that Will and Martin still have great chemistry and their banter is still one of the biggest highlights for this movie. I was worried about this as Martin Lawrence hasn’t been in a lot of films but this movie shows that they still got it. Additionally, the movie makes their characters have more depth instead of being loud over the top cops and that was very interesting. The action scenes also have a lot less shaky cam which makes it so much easier to know what is going on compared to the previous films. The movie also does comedy much better than the first two movies with moments that actually gave me a chuckle. There are still some sex jokes but penis jokes and fart jokes are gladly gone. Also, the story is actually a lot more compelling compared the first two movies by making it feel more personal instead of “hot girl gets kidnap by a bad person”. On that note, the villain is more memorable as it feels like they have a personality and has a believable motive instead of being a generic 80s cannon fodder. The stakes in these movies feel high and more important to the characters.

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However, this movie feels very generic and conventional and doesn’t really add anything to the action genre. It’s just a typical action movie that is not as terrible as the first two. The action scenes while much more visible, lack a lot of the high octane energy from Michael Bay movies. I hate the first two movies but there is some pretty crazy action in them such as the freeway scene in Bad Boys 2 but in this movie, they are just really tame. Furthermore, the movie also has a surprising amount of blatant CGI and green screen which are very noticeable in action scenes. It’s very obvious when they green-screened a stunt double with Will Smith’s face or Martin’s face and it can take you out the movie sometimes. Finally, without spoiling the story, there is just one moment near the end of the movie that really irritates me when a character makes a choice that makes no sense as there was no proper build-up to it. It just happens and it doesn’t feel deserved or believable.

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In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. However, the franchise is still quite bad in my opinion and this movie doesn’t make me change my mind. Maybe the 4th movie which should be called Bad Boys 4ever steps up the plate and takes more risk. 


 

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