It’s hard to quit Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The duo first paired for the 1995 Michael Bay-directed action-comedy “Bad Boys” and are a joy from the opening sequence of the franchise’s more-entertaining-than-not fourth entry, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” which speeds into theaters this week. As veteran Miami police detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, respectively, Smith and Lawrence pick right up with their characters’ signature bickering, Marcus insisting to the fast-driving Mike that he’s going to be sick if he doesn’t get some ginger ale.
Mike agrees to stop the car, giving Marcus 90 seconds to run into a store to buy the ginger ale — and ONLY the ginger ale — with the snack-loving Marcus, upon grabbing the soda, housing a pack of Skittles and ordering a day-old hotdog at the counter. He may have gotten away with it, too, had it not been for the stickup man who slows him down and with whom the cops quickly deal. (By this point, Mike is highly displeased with both the criminal and his longtime partner.
) Perhaps you are trying to quit Smith in light of “the slap heard around the world,” Smith’s infamous introduction of his hand to presenter Chris Rock’s face during the 2022 Academy Awards ceremony . It’s been pretty easy until now, as Smith was last in theaters later in 2022, briefly, with the so-so slavery action-drama “Emancipation.” How, if at all, would this movie — like its 2020 processor, “Bad Boys for Life, directed by Bi.
