Review: 'Bad Boys: Ride or Die' aims to give Will Smith some career rehab, in an incoherent action movie that veers unsteadily from raging action to broad comedy

It’s hard to think of anyone who needs or particularly wants a fourth movie in the “Bad Boys” franchise who didn’t work on it. 

Topping that list is one of the stars, Will Smith, on the first step at rehabilitating the career he literally slapped away on the night he won an Oscar. Also in need of a hit is the directing team of Adil & Bilali, whose last movie was Warner Bros.’ shelved-for-tax-purposes “Batgirl” movie.

But are there fans clamoring for the fourth installment of a franchise that, at 29, is older than the movie’s target audience? Particularly one that’s this tonally unbalanced, careening from unfocused mayhem and scattershot humor? Only the box office knows.

The movie begins with Smith’s Mike Lowrey and his longtime Miami PD partner, Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), racing in Mike’s Porsche to an important appointment — one interrupted by quick stop at a convenience store, where the two cops interfere with a robbery. Soon we see what they were rushing toward: Mike’s wedding to Christine (Melanie Liburd), who, we’re told, was Mike’s physical therapist after getting shot in the last movie, 2020’s “Bad Boys For Life.”

At the wedding reception, Marcus has a heart attack and has a near-death experience — one featuring Marcus and Mike’s old boss, Capt. Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who was killed off in the last movie. Howard tells Marcus that it’s not his time, and when he revives, Marcus feels both a zen-like calm and a belief that he can’t be killed.

Of course, someone wants Marcus and Mike dead — they always do in these movies — but first they have to be made to suffer. The mystery bad guy, introduced initially only as McGrath (played by Eric Dane), arranges to have $20 million in drug cartel money wired into Capt. Howard’s old bank account. This leads Mike and Marcus’ current boss, Capt. Rita Secada (Paola Nuñez), and the U.S. attorney, Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd), to suspect Howard was corrupt. Mike and Marcus refuse to accept this, and work to convince everyone, including Howard’s daughter, Judy (Rhea Seehorn), a U.S. marshal, that he was honest.

They get help in this pursuit by Howard himself, through a series of messages he recorded before his death. This provides the cops a trail to follow, if they can do so while McGrath is busy setting Mike and Marcus up to look like dirty cops themselves. Soon, the only people our heroes can trust are two young Miami cops, Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig), and Mike’s assassin son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), all characters we met in the last movie. Meanwhile, every law officer wants to apprehend them and every street criminal wants the $5 million bounty put on their heads.

The directors, Adil El Arbi and Bilali Fallah, try to have it both ways. They want the thunderous action and explosions of the previous films, as well as the macho, jokey byplay between Smith and Lawrence, lawmen so cool they sing their own theme song — and, yes, that song pops up a lot, including one cover version that’s actually, in context, pretty funny. 

The humor, though, is often at odds with the stakes the script, by Chris Bremner and Will Beall, tries to lay out.  That includes some off-putting brief appearances by Tiffany Haddish and DJ Khaled (the latter reprising his role from the last movie), and the apparently obligatory cameo from Michael Bay, who directed the first two movies back in 1995 and 2003, respectively.

The question for “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is whether Smith and Lawrence can apply their charms, as leading men or comic foils, to make us care for our heroes as they slide through their 50s. Lawrence had some funny moments, and Smith can still pour on the charisma when It’s asked of him. They’re not enough to save this mess of a movie, though. 

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‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’

★★

Opens Friday, June 7, at theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong violence, language throughout and some sexual references. Running time: 115 minutes.