I own this movie on DvD.
With the official third film in the franchise recently being in theaters and soon to be out on DvD as well, I decided to start re watching the first two again.
Michael Bay has become pretty infamous among movie goers these days with the over the top action films he makes, having bad editing, weird choices with not very well thought out films meant as popcorn flicks, and an undeniable fetish for lots and lots of big explosions. He's kinda always been that way in films though started out as a music video director.
Bad Boys was his first feature length film, and is before he really embraced his own tropes. Because of that, Bad Boys stands out as one of his best features, though the bar not set very high. It's not high art, but it's not meant to be.
Bad Boys takes the popular 80's movie genre of the buddy cop film and infuses it with Bay's style, with the two leading roles of star power behind Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Two cops who have been partners for 6 years, and apparently good friends for a long time before that. Now caught in having to protect a witness to a murder by a drug lord, everything starts to go wrong with a simple misunderstanding of identity between the two leads.
This is actually where the movie falls flat for me the most. Be warned, some spoilers in my review ahead.
The sub plot of Marcus having to assume the identity of Mike and pretend to be him to keep track of the witness is an interesting idea, but poorly executed with the humor. And that's where most of the humor in this movie comes from, with Marcus trying to pretend to be Mike. Some of the fault with this is Martin Lawrence's delivery of his lines or way of acting, but that's likely just due to the material he was given. This just serves as a distraction and really doesn't pay off in any meaningful way in the end. The whole subplot of this miss identity could have been cut out and probably have made the movie better.
That being said, I still find this an enjoyable film to watch and a fun ride. It's not high art like I said, and it's not meant to be. It's a 90's action film, and I love 90's action films. So I would probably rate this higher than I should, but this is my opinion and my review.
Mistake Status: I wasn't looking for any this watch, but I will most likely come back to this some day and really break it apart.
★★★★☆
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