There's not enough to lift “Ride or Die” beyond its paint-by-numbers plotting, or prevent the film from being inevitably tethered to the Slap.
This image released by Sony Pictures shows Will Smith, left, and Martin Lawrence in "Bad Boys: Ride or Die." Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the fourth installment in the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence action-comedy series, is about a fight to redeem a tarnished legacy.
The result is the first movie Smith has made in that era defined as Post Slap. Here he is, back in the driver’s seat and flying around the Miami waterfront with Lawrence riding shotgun. That’s to say: Smith is very much back in his element. Some signs of age is creeping in “Ride or Die.” Marcus has a heart attack on the dance floor and Mike is suffering from panic attacks. But with the exception of a drone or two, this is a movie that feels like it exists in the 1990s. Jerry Bruckheimer is still a producer, while original director Michael Bay has, as he did in the previous one, steps aside for Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah.
The same might have once been said of Smith’s bulletproof screen presence, of course. Here, Smith seems a little less cocksure than he once did; those panic attacks keep coming for Mike. Smith is also playing more of a straight-man to Lawrence. If the slap caused a reassessment of Smith as a movie star, “Ride or Die” is the kind of the tailor-made vehicle that reminds you there haven’t been many better male American action stars in the last few decades.
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