Bad Boys: Ride or Die is in cinemas and Jim Henson: Idea Man is streaming on Disney+
It’s curious to me that local distributors consider a new Bad Boys film – four years on from the third sequel, in turn 17 years from the second film and 25 years from the first – to be such a big deal that they would leave it alone in the schedule like this.
It’s not like the makers and stars have shown much urgency about the property up to now. Those big gaps make it seem like a bit of an afterthought in Will Smith’s career.
Except that now – thanks to the slap heard around the world – Mr. Smith needs a hit.
I was not fond of the last edition – Bad Boys for Life (2020). The direction, by Belgian partnership Adil & Bilal, was too frenetic for me. I remember it being all action, no rest, with a constantly whirling camera that gave me feelings of motion sickness.
Well, maybe they have slowed down, or I have caught up a bit, but I’m inclined to be more sympathetic to these Bad Boys than I was then.
The film opens with some typically dangerous driving across the streets of Miami. Detective Mike Lowry (Smith) and his partner Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are bickering furiously in Lowry’s Porsche. I forget the back story about how it is that Smith’s character, an honest cop, should be so damn rich but here we are.
Marcus has made them late and Mike is anxious to make up the time. Understandably, it turns out, because they are headed to his wedding. The perennial bachelor is marrying the physical therapist who helped him recover from being shot in the last film (Melanie Liburd).
At the wedding party, Marcus has a heart attack and sees their deceased former captain, Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who tells him that it is not his time to depart. As a result he recovers, with a dicky heart but unassailable confidence in his own survival abilities.
Howard is being posthumously framed for bribery in order to take the heat of an investigation off the real corrupt cops. He has left our heroes with some clues as to who the bad guys are but the final piece of the puzzle can only come from Mike’s incarcerated son Armando (Jacob Scipio). Armando is in jail for the killing of Howard but he’s a good boy, really.
So begins a race against time – and across South Florida – to try and secure the evidence before the cartel and their cop colleagues dispose of everyone.
Apart from the final shoot-out at an alligator ranch turned abandoned theme park (which makes ingenious use of the locale), the set-pieces are noisy and unfulfilling. And the frantic banter becomes wearing at times, too, but what’s notable is that this is much more of a Lawrence film than a Smith one.
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Much is being made of the self-conscious slapping scene, in which Lawrence tries to break Smith out of a panic attack, but it’s clear that Smith is portraying himself as something of a humbled man (in recognition, perhaps, of the damage he did to his reputation at the Oscars two years ago).
Anyway, there are downbeat moments here which actually serve to provide some necessary light and shade in the film. Respite from the storm, if you will.
You won’t be surprised by any of the plot twists and turns but there is an excellent Reba McEntire joke and two performances that belong in much more elevated company: Scipio as Armando offers more depth than the writing does and Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn shows that she needs to be given something decent to do and quickly.
There’s not much to criticise about Jim Henson: Idea Man, Ron Howard’s biography of the Muppet-master.
It’s well structured, makes good use of excellent archive resources, eye-witnesses are expertly martialed and the viewer is left in no doubt about the value that Henson gave the world, while at the same time not sugar-coating his difficulties as a person.
I didn’t love it, though, partly because it was just so darn competent. It doesn’t fly but I’m not sure what I would do different to make it so.
Henson never wanted to be a puppeteer, he just wanted to work in television and make films. But once he became ‘trapped’ if you will by his mastery of the magic puppetry arts, he poured his talent into what he had in front of him, to the benefit of everyone.
His impact was remarkable but so was his work ethic. Flying backwards and forwards across the Atlantic to continue performing in Sesame Street while conquering the world with the Muppet Show was punishing for him but glorious for us.
That he would be taken by untreated pneumonia, three years younger than I am now, is a distinctly sobering realisation. What am I doing with my life!?
