Bad Boys - 25th Anniversary

BAD BOYS - SONY Pictures

Much has been made of the term “Bayhem” in recent years, as Michael Bay’s filmography has grown more aggressively obnoxious and over the top. So, revisiting his debut film is always a surprise, as it is reasonably grounded and lacks the bombastic nonsense the action auteur is known to project upon audiences. 

Bad Boys, now in its 25th Anniversary year is a reasonably generic buddy-cop film about two detectives who are polar opposites of each other. Working together to solve the case of a drug robbery and murder of a woman that involves a witness they must protect. Will Smith’s Mike Lowrey is a playboy millionaire who is only a cop as a hobby, while Martin Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett is an honest family man. On paper these two established comedic stars should have great chemistry and be a match made in heaven, sadly they are not. 

Will Smith plays it with his usual Will Smith charm that has only grown stale. Smith’s Lowrey is a complete douchebag. His womanising is continuously referenced throughout, his home is a shrine to himself, which would be fine and even pretty funny had the character been written better, but he is simply a one-note asshole. 

Martin Lawrence’s performance is nothing to shout about either. His character never goes beyond doing a high-pitched voice in a tense situation. These people are awful cops too. With all their mistakes, increasing body counts and collateral damage, it’s incredible that they aren’t fired by the end of the film. All the side characters are horrible, especially Marcus’s wife, who is just a total uptight buzzkill and nothing more. Way to write female characters Bay. A seemingly clear career path from the director who has never shied away from his misogynistic tones.

The one redeeming character is easily Joe Pantoliano’s Captain Conrad Howard, Mike and Marcus’s long-suffering boss who is constantly at the end of his tether. His explosive outbursts are Bad Boys only comedic moments that actually land. This honestly would have been a better film if he was one of the leading players in the story. 

Bay’s flourish for action works much better in small bursts, leaving them to feel compelling and unique. The finale at the airport is the standout, making use of excellent stunt work and practical effects, including a glorious and over the top explosion that devours the screen. The whole film, however, feels weird. It is a Michael Bay film but without a lot of action, which can be appreciated. He has proved he can do action-light films to surprising success in 2013’s underrated Pain and Gain, but here outside the action things are just not very interesting at all. 

The plot is messy and makes no sense. Marcus and Mike have to pretend to be each other in some deeply unfunny scenes. As a comedy, this falls completely flat. All the jokes are either cringe-worthy or uncomfortably racist, which is another staple of Bay’s body of work. Every single race is some cheap stereotype, which one could argue makes it a product of its time, but viewing it in 2020, it is just all a bit painful. 

A lot of this sounds cynical, which it is. There is no denying this is a bad film. It is mostly just interesting to see Bay’s beginning as a director and Will Smith’s gradual turn into an action star.    

Even looking at the poster, Michael Bay has a massive hard-on for the colour yellow. The whole film is over-saturated in a piss coloured yellow aesthetic. The colour scheme, a non-stop yellow, is repetitive and grows grotesque and ugly by the end. However, even with the overbearing yellow colour schemethis is a gorgeous 4K release, brimming with detail and vibrant improvements on the colours. The previous, mastered in 4K Blu-ray release was excellent too, but this more than tops that. Another class UHD release from Sony, who continues to knock it out of the park with their releases. 

25 years on and Bad Boys has aged extremely poorly. At best, it is a generic buddy-cop film that has bursts of memorable action and a healthy dose of ’90s cheese. At its worst, it is a painful exercise in poor writing, awful jokes and unlikeable characters.