BAD BOYS FOR LIFE, Super Quick Review

This is a quick review for Bad Boys for Life. The film has new-to-the-franchise directors, Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah. So no Michael Bay like we got from the first two films. Therein, may lie the difference between the first two and this film...  Bay has a cameo and he directed his own scene. We'll leave it at that.

Even the writing crew is new.

So the creative team had to balance between giving us what we've come to expect, but NOT look like they were ripping off the first two films. But as a sequel, how could it not?

We have a few actors reprise their roles from the first films, and it's funny and surprising, all at once. Remember the kid Uncle Mike tried to scare when he showed up to pick up Marcus's daughter for a date? Yea...  I'll leave it at that.

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The last time we saw Mike and Marcus, Marcus was wanting to retire and Mike was doing what Mike does, which was shooting up bad guys, creating a lot of destruction in his wake and scaring the crap out of Marcus.

Not much has changed in Bad Boys for Life and I started wondering how this third Bad Boys film will be interesting enough to succeed at the box office.

The bad guy comes from Mike's past, from beyond the first film, as if it was the origin story of Mike Lowry.

The first act sets the tone for events to take place throughout the rest of the film and does not disappoint, as far as this franchise is concerned. Marcus is still trying to retire, more so than ever, but events set in motion a lot of retrospective moments, and Marcus finds himself having his inner battle of family, life, and his friend/job.

Though, there may have been too many retrospective moments. Sometimes I felt like the story was trying to puff itself out to warrant the upcoming action that the Bad Boys franchise fans have come to expect.

But the action does come, but in an almost too dark of a setting, where all the action gets blurred and blended up in a dull set of action scenes. There is one character that felt like a weak ripoff of Dwayne Johnson's character Beck in the 2003 movie, The Rundown, even down to body slamming building pillars. That seemed almost too weak of a moment for Bad Boys, but there it was.

As the film wore on and on, it wasn't bad but fun to see our favorite Bad Boys in action. But the filmmakers just didn't quite hit every mark the other films did.

Plus, to be honest, I'm not sure I believed how quickly one of our bad guys became confused and tripped up by personal revelations. (An almost parallel rip off to another Will Smith film...  You'll see.)

AND there is a quickie, movie closing scene which sets us up for another film, if this one does alright. NOW that one could have some serious promise because I liked the young guy who could be the new Bad Boy.

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All in all, if you're tight on funds, you won't be disappointed with matinee prices for this film, and probably, be OK with a full price ticket. Make no mistake, this is a pure popcorn fun action flick with a wee bit too much exposition, but be ready for a few shocks along the way. The shocks alone were almost worth the price of admission.

The fans on IMDb have given it so far, a 7.4/10, if that's any measure for you to ponder.

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