Bad Boys: Ride Or Die review – This sweary slapstick has plenty of action but the format is dusty
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE
(15) 115mins
★★☆☆☆
PABad Boys: Ride Or Die featuring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, was generally bad[/caption]
GettyIoan Gruffudd at the movie’s LA premiere[/caption]
THERE’S something to be said for casting a film with actors whose private lives are more interesting than the car chases or gun battles they play out on screen.
That is what I thought when watching the scenes between Will Smith and Ioan Gruffudd.
The former, whose Oscar slap caused an avalanche in his life so ferocious that his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, revealed they had been separated for seven years.
And the latter with scorned ex-wife, Alice Evans, pegging out his dirty laundry on Twitter.
So it would need to be a seriously enthralling movie to distract me from remembering their real stories.
Sadly, this fourth film in the Bad Boys hugely successful franchise was not it.
This sees the return of Miami cops Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Martin Lawrence), once again, fighting crime with their special version of sweary slapstick.
Marcus suffers a heart attack and has an out-of-body experience, meeting dead boss Captain Howard, who whispers guidance in his ear about the future — and the crimes that they are about to fight.
Marcus then returns to his body in a hospital bed and goes on a quest to show Mike he is now invincible.
He teeters on the edge of tall buildings, plays chicken in traffic and tries to stroke an alligator.
All of these are delivered with such painstakingly slow “jokes” that it feels like swimming through treacle to reach the “punchline”.
The duo’s job this time round is to clear the name of the late Captain Howard, who was framed by Eric Dane’s mysterious villain.
They ask for the help of Mayor Lockwood (Gruffudd), and cop pals Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens) and Dorn (Alexander Ludwig).
Humour aside, there’s plenty of action to keep fans entertained.
Directors Adil & Bilall throw everything at it with computer-game-style gun battles and airborne fist fights.
The death count is high — as is the ridiculousness of the entire situation.
The format is dusty and less desirable than the sleeker, scarier first outing of the duo in 1995.
I could have done with some angry ex-wives to keep me interested.
Film news
THERE will be a Peaky Blinders movie, starring Cillian Murphy, to be made for Netflix.
ELLE Fanning stars in the next Predator film, called Badlands.
WILLEM Dafoe plays an “afterlife crimes” cop in Beetlejuice 2.
FOOD, INC. 2
(12) 94mins
★★★☆☆
AlamyThe Food, INC. 2 documentary does taste rather dry and overdone[/caption]
WHILE the subject is worthwhile and the topics raised are not unappetising, this sequel to the 2008 Oscar-nominated documentary does taste rather dry and overdone.
In fairness, it isn’t simple to inject some sizzle into the subject of corporate consolidation in the food industry and a system set up to simply generate cash.
The makers have done their best to show the futuristic ways inventors are trying to make what is on our plates more about sustainability than profitability.
“A lot is at stake when you sit down to eat,” and here that includes workers’ and farmers’ rights, legislation and, of course, the monetary bottom line.
Forward-thinking start-ups have invented alternative meat products, such as synthetic chicken breasts, that apparently taste just the same when fried in a pan.
But they are still many years away from appearing on a supermarket shelf.
Meanwhile, US senators Cory Booker and Jon Tester try to inspire change by altering laws affecting corporate production and employee welfare.
Directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, this will certainly raise awareness about what is in your fridge and how it got there but may not leave you feeling completely sated.
THE WATCHED
(15) 102mins
★★★☆☆
AlamyDakota Fanning and Georgina Campbell in The Watched, Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directorial debut[/caption]
THERE is much talk of nepo babies in Hollywood these days.
But do the spawn of the rich and famous ever have their parents’ talent?
Ishana Night Shyamalan, daughter of Sixth Sense director, M. Night Shyamalan, shows in this directorial debut that she certainly has her dad’s love of a thrilling twist.
After a first scene showing some very dark-goings on in woods in Ireland, we meet Mina (Dakota Fanning) who is working in a pet shop.
She is asked to deliver a parrot to a client, but soon stumbles across the woods – a place where time and logic goes out of the window.
There, she has her life saved by Madeline (Olwen Fouere), Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan) who have been trapped there for months.
They teach her the strange rules, which involve standing in front of a glass screen for hours to be watched by the terrifying souls in the forest after dark.
Frustratingly, like her dad, it seems Ishana doesn’t quite know how to end a movie (see The Village and Old for details).
But this is still a strangely watchable first punt at a scary supernatural film with a twist.
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