Bad Boys for Life (2020)

Directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah. Starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Paola Núñez, Kate del Castillo, Joe Pantoliano, Jacob Scipio, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Vanessa Hudgens, Nicky Jam, Theresa Randle. [R]

Third outing for “bad boy” Miami cops Mike and Marcus, some two-and-a-half decades after their first outing. Here, their bad selves are now their (literal) old selves—Lawrence is even a grampa—but not even the fact that one gets riddled with bullets or that the other one retires is going to prevent this duo from busting baddies while cracking wise once again. Those wisecracks were one of the best parts of the original, and one of the most grating aspects of the first sequel, while here it’s just boring, old-married-couple sort of stuff, rarely resulting in either smiles or eyerolls. The threat this time comes in the form of ruthless assassin Scipio and his cold “witch” of a mother (del Castillo), who has a personal vendetta against Smith’s character. The revelation of why she holds that grudge around the two-thirds mark is when this escapist junk food spins out of control and never recovers, even straining for some kind of operatic ties-that-bind drama during the climax that almost resembles Return of the Jedi (no, seriously). Before that, it was a rather painless if disposable buddy action movie, profiting from a Belgian directing duo replacing Michael Bay, where they manage to make the action scenes visually cogent and place them almost (almost) within the realm of “average action movie” reality (excepting the fiery climax when all goodwill had vanished anyway). Bay is involved in some fashion, however: he cameos as an emcee at Lawrence’s daughter’s wedding; astonishingly, it’s not even the most ignominious celebrity appearance…since DJ Khaled shows up, too. As the long-suffering police captain, Pantoliano predictably steals the movie.

39/100