Movie Review: Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024) seen in theatres

Action comedy: not recommended for young children; intense sequences of violence, coarse language and brief sexual content

This movie follows two police officers, (played by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence,) who are forced back into action after one must retire due to a heart attack to put away a mercenary responsible for the death of their old boss.

Somewhere near the beginning of this film, a wedding is shown between Mike, (played by Will Smith,) and his fiancee with Marcus taking on the role of Mike’s best man during the ceremony. While dancing at the reception, Marcus suffers a heart attack and is put in the hospital having fallen into a coma as a result where a man, (who is presumed to be god,) informs him that it is not his time to die. After being told this, he awakens from his coma and asks to be released earlier than he should be despite doctors orders. While still in his hospital gown, he stands on a ledge at the roof of the hospital as he knows he cannot die. This causes Mike to worry and he makes several attempts to get Marcus down from the ledge before Marcus finally agrees to. Marcus finds himself living dangerously throughout the rest of the film as he believes he can no longer die no matter what happens to him. Later in the film, it is revealed that it has been two weeks since his heart attack and his wife and other family members are shocked that he was allowed to leave so early under the circumstances. He is also shown to have a sweet tooth throughout the film, (which again goes against doctors orders,) as he attempts to consume numerous sugary snacks throughout the film. However, Marcus’ carefree lifestyle and desire to live on the edge is tested when he and Mike undertake a mission to clear their own names of any wrongdoing when they are falsely blamed for the murder of their old boss. From there, it is a fight to the death and Mike and Marcus find themselves in gun fights that put both of their families at risk as well as themselves.

I have to be honest in saying that recently my movie blogs have been lacking. Due to a lack of time between seeing “Despicable Me 4” and this movie, this is the first movie blog I’ve been able to do since seeing “Despicable Me 4” as it is the first movie I’ve seen since seeing that movie if anybody can believe it or not. I actually went about two weeks between seeing one movie and another as there has been some issues going on around my family recently.

As I am not really a fan of action movies, I didn’t think much of this movie and I didn’t think it was going to be as good as it was. If I’m being honest, I went into seeing this movie believing that the only good thing to come out of it would have been to break the two week drought of me not watching movies and in turn not doing movie blogs.

This is also the second movie in a row that I’ve seen the fourth installment of a movie, (the last movie of this kind was “Despicable Me 4”) where I had not seen the first three movies in the trilogy and therefore, I did not have much to go on as I didn’t know what they were about. I did know however that this movie was an action movie and as this is not my preferred movie genre, I thought it wouldn’t be anything good.

One of the things I enjoyed about this movie was Will Smith. Even going into this movie, I was a fan of him and I thought for sure that if nothing else, he would have at least made the movie worth seeing and he did not disappoint. He has been a source of nostalgia for me personally having grown up in the 90’s and watched him on “The fresh prince of Belair. Growing up, he was the stereotypical comedian and therefore, he is a very respected actor. I think he played his role really well.

This movie was the first movie I have seen Martin Lawrence act in if anybody can believe that. However, I really enjoyed his comedic acting as he played the scapegoat in the movie and always ended up taking the bullet. To me, he was seen as the absent minded cop who got things wrong and always ended up in the crossfire, ETC. I also share one of his problems throughout this movie as well. I tend to have a really bad sweet tooth and those around me tend to recommend that I don’t eat too much of it just like members of his family did in this film.

This movie was definitely a step up from “Thelma” (2024,) as I could not find anything good to report on that film. When seeing that movie, it went through my head that I really need to start only seeing movies that I know about and are interested in. However, Bad Boys: Ride or Die goes to prove to me that sometimes I need to give things a chance before saying I don’t like it. I definitely enjoyed this movie much more than I enjoyed “Thelma.”

Another thing I will give this movie credit for is the fact that its made me laugh at a time where things aren’t going so great in my life with mom being sick with cancer. As a matter of fact, I will also give that same credit to “Despicable Me 4” as I saw that movie coincidentally on the day of her surgery. At this point, she has been released from the hospital but is suffering as she recovers from the operation. In other words, it’s a good thing that the last two movies were comedies because I needed that release from all of my grief, even if just for two hours.

This was a really good movie. I would definitely recommend it

Movie rating: 10 out of 10