*Minimal spoilers here

IMDB Synopsis

Old-school cops Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett team up to take down the vicious leader of a Miami drug cartel. Newly created elite team AMMO of the Miami police department along with Mike and Marcus go up against the ruthless Armando Armas.

The original Bad Boys is known for a couple reasons. First because it was the debut of the explosion king Michael Bay, and second because it truly launched the Blockbuster career of Will Smith (ever heard of him?). Bad Boys was a play on the classic buddy cop formula with Will Smith playing the fearless officer with his partner Martin Lawrence always a little hesitant but will protect his friend at all times. The reason people loved the movie and its sequel so much though was because of the undeniable chemistry between Smith and Lawrence’s Mike and Marcus.

In this long awaited third installment to the franchise, Michael Bay unfortunately could not come back due to filming the nonsense that is 6 Underground (Juice Rating 38/100). So they brought in Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (also developing Beverly Hills Cop 4) to do their best Bay impression. We still get all the slo mo, all the dramatic circle shots and of course explosion after explosion. Oh and also a thin story and some underdeveloped characters which is also a Bad Boys staple.

It seemed like they really tried to canonize this movie by creating a back story for Mike and his family but it all felt so forced and actually kept Smith and Lawrence apart for too much of the movie. Which at the end of the day the best parts of these movies are the seasons when they are just bantering back and forth with each other.

For this third movie, they added a crew of young elite specialists that the Boys need to work with helmed by a previous love interest of Mike. This brings more complications and probably stagnates the movie a little too much. The team was also so cliche as well that none of it felt fresh or exciting.

Stock Watch

Stock Neutral – Will Smith

As always he is still just doing Will Smith things at all times throughout this movie. He does have to do a little more dramatic acting in this than the previous movies, which was fun to see.

Stock Up – Martin Lawrence

Wow is he back or what? He really has not been in much in the last ten years but he was by far the funniest person in the movie. In the middle when his character was off to the side for Will Smith’s I found myself wanting more of Lawrence. I hope to see him continue with more work in the future.

Who’s That Guy/Gal?

Joe Pantoliano – 151 IMDB Acting Credits

Joey Pants baby!!! He is basically the Mendoza line for That Guys and he had a wonderful part in this reprising his role as the Captain. I probably laughed every time he opened his mouth and as always I felt like I wanted more for him to do.

Michael Bay

UHHH Hell yeah he made a cameo in this. He even got his own circular shot around him when he showed up just to hammer home that yes this is in fact Michael Bay.

*A couple other tidbits

• The whole wedding saying BAD BOYS FOR LIFE was just terrible
• They also said Bad Boys for Life no less than 10 times in this movie
• Seems like they stole the airplane scene right off of Hobbs and Shaw
• REGGIE!

This movie should not have been as fun as it was. You had the actors 15 years older, no Michael Bay, and the stigma of the sequel reboot culture. However, despite a thin story and villains, this still found a way to hit its mark with the main characters and that is all that really matters.

Juice Rating:

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