When you look at the Bad Boys movies without a personal filter then things become much more simplified and it’s very easy to think that they’re entertaining and exciting movies since, y’know, explosions, action, models on the screen acting and such. Once you start to use your brain a little however it becomes a bit less entertaining since you begin to realize that a good amount of the stuff that Mike and Marcus are doing throughout the movie would be more than a little illegal and would get them tossed off the force if not in jail with those they’ve busted. Given the world in its current state and the number of people that tend to want to ride cops about their aggressive behaviors now and again this type of reality would undoubtedly see another wave of individuals and various protest groups calling for stricter regulations and even more rules for cops given how much destruction Mike and Marcus tend to cause throughout the first two movies. And just think, there’s another one to go and see, this time with the guys finally showing their age as they head out for one more ride to take on another case that coincides with a case they already closed years before. Yep, that’s right, a relation to the killer they already took out is emerging to strike up a vendetta against the pair. Please tell me you saw that one coming.
If you don’t know Michael Bay’s signature in movies by now then you’ve been missing out on a lot since the explosions, the glamour, the constant action and cheap jokes that all come together to form a very basic but very simple to follow movie are kind of his thing. From Bad Boys to Transformers his need to have multiple explosions and intense action scenes in which the heroes almost always appear to be in trouble but have some amazing way out is kind of a trademark that he’s taken as his own even if it’s similar to many movies across the breadth of Hollywood. A lot of people would just shake their heads and say leave it be since loud explosions and lots of action are what they like and it doesn’t require a lot of great acting to make it work. They’re not entirely wrong since all that action is enough to make a lot of people forget that the acting hasn’t always been up to par and the juvenile jokes are, on their own, kind of cringe-worthy at times. But give Bay credit, there are those scenes in the movie that are genuinely entertaining and noteworthy as they create moments of tension and hilarity that make you recall them simply because they struck a chord.
Let’s be fair, shall we? A lot of us liked Bad Boys and the sequel when they came out since it was a time of action and excitement on screen and people really enjoyed this genre for all it was worth. After a while the movies did get a bit stale and the whole action genre started to suffer from too much of the same thing and not enough diversity in storytelling. One can only tell the same type of story in so many different ways until people start picking up on the similarities and announce that they’re bored and need something else that’s going to keep them stimulated. Plus, the sequel to Bad Boys attempted to make a play on the same jokes from the first movie and quickly found that this wouldn’t work so they added in other elements in an attempt to get people to keep their attention focused forward. The KKK scene in the second movie was kind of interesting at first until one realizes that Mike and Marcus likely would have been drilled eight ways from Sunday the moment they took their eyes off of the guys surrounding them. One thing Michael Bay doesn’t always appear to look into though is realism since he tends to favor sensationalism. It’s not a bad trait really, especially when making a movie, but there are moments when it causes the audience to cock their heads and think ‘really?’. Plus, a few of the scenes in the movie were more than capable of doing that on their own such as the use of Johnny Tapia as a drug kingpin that was supposed to be taken seriously. Really, he was more like a discount Tony Montana with a juvenile attitude.
Fair play to the movies really when it comes to action since there was plenty of it, enough that you had to wonder if you were watching the same movie after a while given how much trouble Mike and Marcus found themselves in regularly. But overall, the Bad Boys movies are perfect if you shut off your brain and just sit back and enjoy the boom and the glamour shots as the models walk across the screen. Owen Gleiberman of Variety has more to say about the movie.
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