Directing: B-
Acting: B-
Writing: C
Cinematography: C
Editing: C+

I was regarding Michael Bay with contempt before it was cool. This was the guy who directed common-denominator movies designed to pander to dipshits, from Armageddon (1998) to Pearl Harbor (2001) to the moronic and incoherent Transformers (2007) and its many sequels.

Before all that, though, in 1995, he directed Bad Boys (1995), and it was kind of fun, even with Téa Leoni as a walking stereotype. It wasn’t a great movie, but it was fun. And then Michael Bay returned to direct the 2003 sequel, which . . . wasn’t as good.

I guess Michael Bay was busy this time around, because another 17 years later, we’re treated with Bad Boys for Life, now directed by “Adil and Bilall,” a relatively unknown Belgian director duo, who, incidentally, were 7 and 9 years old when the original Bad Boys was released. Surely a couple young, hip directors will breathe some fresh life into this old franchise, right?

Wrong. This movie has the feel of something directed by people who need a little more practice, and is written—by a team of three writers—with no trace of originality or genuine wit. Okay, I’ll admit I laughed a few times. That has less to do with the boneheaded action-movie writing than it does with the familiar chemistry between Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, who are now 25 years older than they were in the first one of these movies. The script is peppered with a good amount of jokes about their age.

Adil El Arbi and Bilal Fallah clearly want this movie to be part of Michael Bay’s legacy, with its refusal ever to traffic in subtlety. The villain is, I kid you not, a Mexican witch (played by Mexican actress Kate del Castillo). I guess each of these movies must have a different woman in a key supporting role. This one has two, the other one a fellow cop played by Paola Nuñez. Both are old flames of Will Smith’s Detective Mike Lowrey. Side note: Vanessa Hudgens also features in a part as one of a new “AMMO” squad staffed by younger people. I guess just because these movies are set in Miami, the villains always have to be Latino. Speaking of which, there’s a lot of wide shots of the Miami skyline, which I suppose is cool. Until it gets, like everything else in this movie, vastly overused.

For a lot of people, Bad Boys for Life will just be a fun return to the mindless nineties action movie aesthetic, and I get it. It’s just not for me. And too many of the plot turns are predictable—a notable thing for me to notice, as I am never looking to predict where the story is going. The script employs narrative devices that were overdone twenty years ago, like a fake-out meant to make us think Mike has died, even though the movie is less than half over. I’d have far more respect for this movie if they actually did kill him off forty minutes in.

So okay, sure, this movie is just harmless, dumb fun. I only found it sporadically fun, and mostly just dumb. And a movie like this doesn’t have to be so lazy in its execution. But, a time tested truth is that lazily executed movies with likable stars will always have an audience. I prefer a movie made by people making more of an effort.

*They’re getting too old for this shit.*

Overall: C+