Bad Boys: Ride or Die: A movie that is too unfair for me to review

You always remember your first time.

🥰

You always remember your first time. 🥰

Have you ever loved anything? Not like a wife or a child or anything like that. Have you ever loved a movie as if it were a wife or child or something like that? Because I have. That's how I feel about the Bad Boys franchise.

My Relationship With Bad Boys

This all started in 1995 with the first Bad Boys movie. A much younger me found the mere existence of this movie to be mind-blowing. It was a movie that starred two of the biggest Black celebrities on the planet at the time, Martin Lawrence as Marcus Burnett and Will Smith as Mike Lowery. Michael Bay directed that film, and this movie is total copaganda to be sure, but the best kind of copaganda. Black Copaganda. 

Will was coming off Fresh Prince of Belair. Martin was coming off his own TV show, Martin. This was the first time I was excited about "Blockbuster Season." I'd seen the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Movie and they were a lean, mean green machine. I went with my Dad and older brother to see T2: Judgement Day which was terminatoriffic, but nothing hit me like Bad Boys did. 

I was 14 in 1995. I had already seen several Buddy Cop movies at the time. I was a big fan of Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, and Beverly Hills Cop. My friends and I would pretend to be these characters all the time, but I always had to be the single Black guy in each movie. My white friends could be Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, or even Joe Pesci, but I always had to be Danny Glover. I'm too old for this shit now, but maybe I didn't want to be Officer Murtaugh or Winston from Ghostbusters. Maybe I didn't want to play a down-and-out cop with his own theme song like Eddie Murphy. Ok... I was happy with that one, but you understand that lack of flexibility was all too common back in the day. 

The idea that there would be this movie with two black men being partners and fighting crime was something I hadn't seen before. The idea that a film this amazing was originally written to include Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz showcases what the 90's movies were white... I mean like. Unless you were in a Spike Lee movie, the heroes were white guys and Black guys were criminals or taking a villain’s orders. That's what made Bad Boys so phenomenal to me. I could play pretend with either of these characters while everybody else had to be Captain Howard.

If you haven't seen the original Bad Boys, my recommendation is to find it and watch it as soon as you can. Will, Martin, Téa Lenoi, and Michael Bay made a film for the ages. This, of course, begs the following question...

Should You See Bad Boys: Ride or Die? 

This is Captain Howard's version of "yes."

Absolutely! 

It's nice to get the kind of violence that I can appreciate. Comedic violence that retains stakes (and steaks as they won't let Martin have any in this movie). It does my heart good to see the same guys doing similar things to what they used to do. A lot of characters from previous movies came out for this one as well. The way they shot the scene with Fletcher (John Salley) in Bad Boys Ride or Die is hilarious and mirrors what they did in the 1995 film. 

In Bad Boys Ride or Die, Mike "King Dingaling" Lowery is finally getting married. It only took him 55 years to stop his himbo ways, but he's finally doing it. They bring back Mike's ex-girlfriend Rita (Paola Nuñez) and his son Armando (Jacob Scipio) who put Mike in a coma in the third movie Bad Boys for Life. They bring back Marcus' daughter's boyfriend from Bad Boys II who Mike and Marcus treated really badly when they met him. You get to learn some very fun things about what he's been up to since then.

Like... really bad.

They even find a way to bring back Captain Howard, played by Joe Pantoliano, who is in every Bad Boys movie and game doing his hilarious impression of a man avoiding having a heart attack through rampant cursing. Howard was killed by Mike Lowery’s son in Bad Boys 3, so we get to meet his granddaughter at Mike’s wedding and find out what his US Marshall daughter Judy (Rhea Seahorn) is planning to do whenever she "runs into Armando on the street." Luckily, the Bad Boys have the tech team AMMO (Vanessa Hudgens and Alexander Ludwig) backing them up. That is very important as Marcus and Mike are definitely "too old for this shit" like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 4. 

So if your question is "Should you see Bad Boys Ride or Die" the answer remains "absolutely." Lots of action. Lots of comedy. Lots of dead bodies and no trust for anyone make this movie an excellent thrill ride for Blockbuster Season. 

If you like these rides and reviews, feel free to share them with your friends or put a little cash in the bucket. I love you and I love that business. 

I Couldn't Remember Bad Boys For Life

I know that I had seen it, the day it came out, but that was January of 2020. Do you remember anything about 2020? It's a struggle to be sure, and I wasn't even in the country at the time. I remember having a conversation with myself about it and remembering it had something to do with Mike Lowery meeting his grown-up, fatherless son. His son Armando was born in a Mexican prison. They basically gave him Bane's (The Dark Night Rises) origin story. 

Same Shit Different Day

As a person with a long Bad Boys history, I knew it'd be hard for me to hate this movie. I don't like not liking things I like. I can say that there was a lot more misery to be played with in this film. Captain Howard is dead and it's Mike's fault for pulling him out of his safe office to help him with a case. Marcus is ready to retire in Bad Boys for Life but ends up getting thrown back into the drama due to Mike. Partners forever, right? Despite all of the same actors returning, Bad Boys Ride or Die is the one that feels the most like a continuation of the movie before. It picks up very close to where Bad Boys for Life left off, starting at Mike Lowery's 55-year-old man's wedding.

The villain, James McGrath (Eric Dane), in this movie, is always one step ahead until he's not. This is typical for movie villains, but this guy was bad in that regard. He shoots people for no reason while telling them what his plans are. He is in the process of framing the deceased Captain Howard. He's got spies everywhere feeding him information. He's got people in prison trying to kill Armando. He's willing to get on a helicopter and slit a pilot's throat to try to make the death of the Bad Boys look like an accident. After that, he puts a 5 million dollar bounty on their heads once they're on the lam together with Armando. 

Eventually, after he sends people to murder everyone's family and Reggie has his big "bang bang shoot'em up" moment, Mike and the gang use AMMO AI to mimic the voice of Reed Richards... er I mean Adam Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd). They get everyone to go to an alligator park and do the business. Armando is the only person to get sliced saving Howard’s granddaughter until Mike shoots Marcus after he has a run-in with an albino. James McGrath is smart until he's just... not. 

I Can’t Hate What I Love

As I said, it's impossible for me to hate a Bad Boys movie. I'm not even going to hold that Theresa Randle was re-cast with Tasha Smith to play Marcus’ wife in the movie. I would like to be more selective, but it's not in the cards this time. I'm not a fan of copaganda, yet I always wanted to be one of the Bad Boys. 

I contain multitudes. 

In any case, grab your family and go check this out. As it was in 1995, we just don't get to see Black men execute this kind of cool violence and partner love in movies. I honestly still can't think of other films like this. Two Black guys fighting crime still isn't something we get to see very often. If I'm wrong, by all means, let me know. The only option I can see is Brooklyn 99, but you have to turn the comedy way up and the violence way down. Anyway, let me know and I'll check it out and possibly add it to the next Media Mix Up!

Thanks for listening.

Go see something action-packed tonight. And as always share and subscribe.