[Review] Bad Boys For Life(2020) {6.5/10}

Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah from a screenplay by Chris Brenner, Peter Cray and Joe Carnahan, the film stars Will Smith (Mike Lowrey), Martin Lawrence (Marcus Burnett), Vanessa Hudgens (Kelly), Alexander Ludwig (Dorn), Joe Pantoliano (Captain Howard), Kate Del Castillo (Isabel Aretus), Theresa Randle (Theresa Burnett), Charles Melton (Rafe) and Paola Nunez (Rita). The film is a third installment in the Bad Boys Franchise.

The film follows Miami narcotics detectives Marcus Burnett(Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) who have been partners for 25 years. When Marcus becomes a grandfather, he starts thinking about retiring but Mike wants to keep being a cop and gets shot by a mysterious assassin. While Mike recovers, Marcus promises to God that he will take retirement and will not bring violence into the world. So, Mike decides to go after the shooter himself but Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) pairs him with a new young team of computer specialists (Paola Nunez, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, and Charles Melton ). Mike finds a clue to the villain's identity which has something to do with his own dark past.

Coming nearly two decades after the last entry, this third buddy-cop does not really reinvent the franchise, so much as it breathes new life into old cliches and caricatures. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah took over the directing duties from Michael Bay and found a nice balance between the plot and the action. But the desire to make the two idiotic cops more sensitive to their carnage does not quite hit the spot. The overdone verbosity is tiresome and the action here, though high stakes and high risk, plays out in pre-mediated fashion. But there are still some nifty action set pieces spread throughout including a particularly memorable, high-speed motorcycle chase. Bad Boys For Life may often seem witless but it is not entirely joyless. If you were a fan of Smith and Lawrence's action comedy hijinks in the 90s, you will eagerly hope for a fourth movie. But if you never really cared for the franchise in the first place, you will probably forget all about it.

Bad Boys For Life is now available on Digital and Blu-ray.