Bad Boys For Life (2020) Dir: Billal Fallah & Adil El Arbi

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The 'Bad Boys' films of the late nineties and early noughties had been fan favourites for years, long after they had come out, and in 2020, directors Billal Fallah and Adil El Arbi gave them a third film, with both leading men returning. I had previously thought those first two films were just okay, but this one had legacy sequel written all over it. It also annoyed me that this one was called 'For Life', and not the fourth one - '4 Life' was right there.

I decided very early on that I wasn't a big fan of Fallah and El Arbi's directing style - for one, they used an awful amount of lense flares. It was immensely irritating, and couldn't be styled out like J.J. Abbrams' 'Star Trek' films. In fact, I thought the whole film looked and felt rather tacky - even the lighting looked straight out of some cheesy TikTok edit. The CGI used during the climax also looked absolutely terrible - I simply had to laugh.

To that end, it really was my amusement at the film's shortcomings that kept me watching it, because the story wasn't any good either. It was cringe-inducing, trope-ridden, highly contrived, and full of useless fluff. It was the most 'Thunder Gun 4: Maximum Cool' feeling film ever. It even had an utterly ridiculous, and absolutely nonsense, finale. I also have to briefly talk about some of my issues with character continuity as well, because, bearing in mind Mike was apparently still very much a police officer at the start of the film, he had no idea how modern police technology or procedures worked.

Will Smith returned, of course, and essentially played himself, or at least for the most part. I do find Smith fairly entertaining, so this wasn't the worst thing ever, but it really didn't feel like I was watching 'Mike' anymore. At least Martin Lawrence still felt like his character 'Marcus', albeit, a fairly dummed down and ridiculous one. I know this was sort of the point of the film, but it really did feel like watching two goofy uncles run around thinking they're still young and cool.

The film tried to spice up the franchise with a whole host of ultimately forgettable, lifeless, and extremely basic side characters. The likes of Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, and Paola Nuñez, all tried to make themselves interesting, and failed miserably. The same could be said of the two bafflingly poor antagonists, played by Kate del Castillo and Jacob Scipio, who were so bad that it felt like scraping sandpaper across my face to watch them. At least Joe Pantoliano had some charisma, but even then, he only featured briefly.

Overall, I thought this was pretty woeful, even for a lighthearted buddy cop action film. It lacked heart, authenticity, and a fundamental degree of execution, which it made it really quite difficult to have to sit through at times. The first two films were never known for their critically effective filmmaking, but at least they were fun - this one was nothing but lacklustre. It turns out that the real bad boys were the creative minds behind this terrible film.