Bad Boys: Ride or Die Review

The fourth entry in the "Bad Boys" series, "Ride or Die," is more or less as fun as the previous film "Bad Boys For Life," and yes, I'm ignoring the silly subtitling. What it lacks in purpose is it more than makes up for it by being a breezy comedic action thriller- I laughed thrice out loud, twice was even at the same joke, and no, I'm not gonna spoil the punchlines.

It helps that my screening was in a relatively packed theater, a lively bunch who busted out giggling constantly. It's not that funny, but it does give good reason as to the whole point of theaters, streaming be damned!

Both Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return, as detectives Mike and Marcus respectively, and despite both pushing sixty, they handle the action scenes with both humor and conviction. It helps that the script by Chris Bremner and Will Beall, gives the actors an opportunity to suffer from the effects of aging; early on Marcus survives a heart attack at Mike's wedding to Christine (Melanie Liburd), and Mike suffers from panic attacks throughout the runtime. But don't worry, they still blow stuff up real good.

And that stuff being blown up succeeds at a technical level too: directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah return from the last picture, and they continue to find exciting ways to film the same old shootouts and car chases. Take one scene where our heroes, alongside Mike's illegitimate son Armando (Jacob Scipio), drive a stolen van after a hit is placed on them. The usual stuff right? But here, the Van catches on fire as it speeds down the streets, cops and gangs in pursuit. It might not make much sense (how does one see, for example), but in "Bad Boys: Ride or Die," questions like that only come up if you forget to leave your brain at the door. I left my brain at the door.

The detectives are working to unframe their late captain Howard (played by the very-much alive Joe Pantoliano), who was working to figure out who "from the top" was working with the cartel. But plotting in a film like this only exists to setup the next big action scene, culminating in a finale inside an abandoned alligator theme park. I always love it when movies involve these reptiles, though I do knock the picture for not having anyone use the line "see you later, alligator." I mean it was right there, come on!

What I can't get behind however brutality against women, where they exist either as a token character in a group (such as Vanessa Hudgens' Kelly) or as kidnap fodder (spoilers). Or, in one scene, unable to handle themselves, despite being a COP and having a GUN, against a man (spoilers, again). I'm not necessarily against cliches, but it's ones like this that are as easy and antiquated as they are wrong.

The narrative is filled with twists and turns but nothing comes as a surprise, and so the emotional core lies on the shoulders of Smith and Lawrence, who have some real nice moments of male bonding. I mean it happens betwixt barb after barb, but hey, boys will be boys.

Under Paris Review

I brought up in my "Sting" review earlier this year that 1975's "Jaws" will likely forever be the defacto giant shark film, and Netflix's latest giant shark film "Under Paris" does nothing to change that. It is a great movie experience even if it's not a great movie, filled with dumb dialogue, idiotic characters, cliches and gore- all the good stuff.

Hey, even a classy critic like me can let loose every once in a while!

We follow Sophia (Bérénice Bejo), your standard cinematic "shark expert," who we first meet right before an incident where her husband and the rest of her team were mauled by Lilith, a tagged mako shark they were tracking. This scene immediately sets the tone for the film, as people float feet underwater next to a bloody baby sperm whale carcass as a shark swims mere meters away. I felt like yelling "get out of the water," but I don't speak French.

Not to suggest that Hollywood (France, as is the case here) at all represents true shark behavior, but even a dummy like me knows better then to enter a predator's territory, let alone one where the beast's leftovers sit.

Still shaken after several years, Sophia is approached by Mika (Léa Léviant), who's been following her work and knows where Lilith is. Spoiler alert, there's a shark in Paris. Well technically it's the Seine, but I suppose "Under Seine" didn't have quite the same ring to it.

Mika leads a sorta hippy environmentalist underground organization with her girlfriend Ben (Nagisa Morimoto), and due to a recent car accident in the Seine where they found the car but not the driver, the couple are planning to go visit Lilith later that night. While underwater, Mika find the car, it's driver's side door covered in teeth marks. Totally nothing the police should have noticed. Nothing suspicious. Nothing to see here.

In truth the cops are shown to be pretty dumb overall, who once a homeless man's half-body is pulled from the water, instinctively dismiss the local shark-expert's claim that it's, you know, a shark. But they've got nothing on the mayor (Anne Marivin), who's role is effectively the same as the mayor in "Jaws:" her only concern isn't the safety of the people but instead the upcoming triathlon

Every line she delivers sounds like a political ad, but her best moment is when after shaking peoples hands, she turns around to apply hand sanitizer- and then she whips her paws dry on a guy's suit! Good stuff.

Anyway, Sophia eventually teams up with cop Adil (Nassim Lyes), but Miko goes her own path, using social media to get help with an effort to safely move Lilith to the ocean from the flooded catacombs. Things, of course, do not go as planned, and it becomes an absolute bloodbath. Here in lies "Under Paris'" strength, showing the stupidity of man: not just of those in charge but people overall, where background characters get trampled as the crowd panics for safety, while others are knocked out and drown. 

This would be horrific had it been played seriously, which it isn't, but mostly had it not immediately succeeded an absolute gem of a scene, where we find out Lilith has a daughter. Miko's in the water, deciding to pet the baby like a doggie. Even a dummy like me knows that shark's skins are like razors! Oh but it gets better, this would-be professional doesn't seem to think that mommy would mind some strange creature being so close to its kid. Miko should really watch more monster flicks, it's obvious the filmmakers have.