The Bad Boys: Ride or Die trailer just dropped...
The movies title is basically the track one posse cut on "Ryde or Die Vol. 1" by the Ruff Ryders.
I'm such a rube. I'm this black kid who was raised on comedy legends doing action movies. While I've recently gone and watched movies about dolls driving away, or 80s bodybuilders having sex with their girlfriends before punching the hell out of everyone, I can't deny my old-school credibility. I can't forget about Axel Foley with his theme, Roger Murtaugh and his crazed partner, or Action Jackson punching Coach Hayden Fox and tearing car doors off.
As much as I loved all those action heroes from the 80s it wasn't until 1995 when the movie Bad Boys came out and turned my perspective the whole way around. Starring Martin Lawrence as Marcus Burnett and Will Smith and Mike "King Ding-a-ling" Lowery, Bad Boys made sense to me in a way I didn't even have language for at the time. It was a movie where BOTH cops are Black. It's a movie where you get that Mike has tons of women around him. It is a film where the heroes have to switch places to be trusted by their witness, Tia Leone. Bad Boys felt like a world I'd inhabited before in the best possible way.
These two cops handled business and punched out the French guy who murdered Mike's friend at the beginning. The movie went so far beyond the idea it was originally written as a vehicle for Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz due to those elements. I wouldn’t have minded seeing what they couldn’t have done, but it wouldn’t have been Bad Boys. It quickly became my favorite movie of all time, and the trailer for their fourth outing, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, was released just a few hours ago.
It's got everything you'd want from a Bad Boys trailer. The Bad Boys dealing with a stick-up like a team that's been doing cop shit together for 30 years. The Bad Boys (yes both of them) yelling at their son-in-law to go get a job. It's even got the Bad Boys tumbling down a helicopter for some reason. All we know so far is that someone seems to have framed their captain, Joey Pants and it's up to the Bad Boys to clear his name by going on the run.
I can honestly say I have almost no idea if this movie will be any good. I liked the first in 1995. Bad Boys II came out in back in 2003, and while I barely remember the Johnny Tapia story, I was deeply into the soundtrack which was executive produced by (oh God…) P Diddy. It had everybody on it from Pharrell Williams and Lenny Kravitz to Jay-Z and half of Roc-a-Fella records. I only know this because my girlfriend at the time held onto it when we broke up!
After that movie, it took another 17 years for the Bad Boys to ride again in the film Bad Boys for Life. Despite my love for the Bad Boys franchise, everything I’ve read about this movie seems like it never happened. It might be pandemic brain, but I think Mike Lowery had a secret son who grew up without him. That boy's mother managed to shoot him on accident, then got mad and tried to kill Mike Lowery before getting shot by Rita... But then I was like who the hell is Rita? Why is Michael Bay a DJ in this movie? What the hell is AMMO? Did I even see this movie!? I did, but it came out in January of 2020. This must have been the last movie I went to see before COVID-19 came out.
I know I've seen all the Bad Boys movies, but I’ve fallen in love with the first one. While I'd love for this movie to mirror what I've already seen from when Tia Leoni was rolling with the Bad Boys, I recognize we've got a movie led by 2 actors in their late 50s who are likely looking to cash out on this film. There was too much slapping and madness in their real lives to keep wanting to come back to this type of movie. Maybe they’ll want to come back and play "The Captain" if anyone decides to do anything with this series when it's over.
Honestly... it doesn't matter. With Bad Boys, I already know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna wait until June 7th, 2024, get up, get out, and get something for the party I'm gonna have to watch their movie. It's going to be epic, plus I'm not sure if I can watch a movie with 65-year-old cops falling out of helicopters and lighting vans on fire. Though I did enjoy those Equalizer movies with Denzel Washington. Maybe I'll go watch one later and hope this flick does well enough to put another TV series on the air like L.A.’s Finest.