Critic Reviews

Bad Boys: Ride or Die provides a much more entertaining package than what came before, with thrilling and inventive action direction from Adil & Bilall. Yes, it’s as over the top and silly as ever, but it’s done with more panache and genuine wit than before, proving these Bad Boys, even at their older age, can still deliver.

Smith, Lawrence, Adil & Bilall keep Mike and Marcus winningly human. They're adult men who suffer from heart attacks and panic attacks as much as they leap over cars and make impossible shots with their pistols. That special, magic mixture of grounded heart with over-the-top action and comedy is what makes a "Bad Boys" film, and make no mistake: "Ride or Die" is not only a great "Bad Boys" film, it's also a top-tier action comedy.

This violent franchise has rarely felt so assured, so relaxed and knowingly funny.

This is Michael Bay for the John Wick generation: bombastic filmmaking at its finest with complex, multi-level action sequences that give the stunts room to breathe.

It does deliver on the mayhem front.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die shows that not only is there still life in this series, but as long as it stars Smith and Lawrence with skilled directors like Adil & Bilall, you could have Lowrey and Burnett wheeling themselves around the old folks’ home and have a blast.

The camera is more athletic than anyone on-screen, muscling between bullets and smashing through walls. Heyvaert shoots action so well that you forgive how little physical action there actually is.

Whether or not it proves a financial success, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is shocking in how effectively it pleases a crowd. It continues the work of "Bad Boys For Life," breathing new energy into a thirty year old franchise that, on paper, should have ran out of steam by now.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is a genuine crowd-pleaser, just undeniably captivating, funny and raging, neon-pink copaganda.

These two actors, with nothing matching but their goatees, have a spiky bromantic chemistry. They don’t just ping off one another’s lines — they lock and load each other.