It doesn’t matter if it’s The Fast and the Furious, the MCU, Kung Fu Panda or Indiana Jones – if the franchise lasts long enough, eventually it’s all about family. Even if it didn’t start out that way. So it is with the latest chapter in the ancient, attenuated Bad Boys series, now just four films old but also almost 30 years, the first one having come out in the early years of the Clinton administration.
The previous instalment, 2020’s Bad Boys For Life (with the confusing tagline “Ride Together. Die Together”) introduced Jacob Scipio as Armando, child of Will Smith’s character, Mike Lowrey. This one gives us Melanie Liburd Mike’s fiancée, whom he marries in an early scene and then mostly ignores.
It’s not that he’s a bad husband. It’s just that he and his police partner Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) have to clear the name of the late Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who was like a father to them, and whose actual daughter (Rhea Seehorn), a U.S.
Marshal, and granddaughter (Quinn Hemphill) are also very upset at what looks to be a posthumous frameup. Family. Watcha gonna do? The shoehorning of Captain Howard’s very after-the-fact setup is just one of several logical leaps and inconsistencies that probably won’t bother fans too much.
They also likely won’t mind that his from-beyond-the-grave video opens with the cliché “If you’re watching this I’m dead” and wraps on the almost-as-hoary “trust no one.” No, fans will be too busy.
