If there are five ages of man, maybe there are four ages of “Bad Boys.” There’s the early age — the original “Bad Boys” came out in 1995 — of youthful effrontery: zappy, flashy, mouthy, decadent. There’s the age when the heroes start to say, “We’re too old for this shit!” There’s the age when they’re too old to even be saying that.
And then there’s “ Bad Boys: Ride or Die ,” the fourth entry in the franchise, in which the actors, the audience, and the whole culture is now so old for this shit that perhaps the only thing left to do is to ramp up the trash nostalgia to new levels of shameless overkill. It’s a truth of the universe that all blockbuster action series must come to an end (“Die Hard with a Lethal Weapon for Another 48 Hrs.” is now ancient history).
But in “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” Will Smith and Martin Lawrence stoke our enthusiasm for that ballistic high-concept tradition with a midseason flair that hovers between antic and awesome. What’s more, there’s something about the timing — it’s a total coincidence, but that’s part of how movies work — that feels almost karmic. This summer, Hollywood has already reeled in anxiety from the double-decker box-office disappointment of “The Fall Guy” and “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
” Could “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” come to the rescue by outperforming them? If so, it will be an instructive reminder of how much our addiction to movies like this one has powered the film.
