Bad Boys For Life (Dir Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, 2h 4m)

 
It's become derigur for film franchises as of late to take a sidelong look at its aging talent, and proceed to play the "we're getting too old for this" card. Die Hard, together with practically every recent film with Harrison Ford or Sylvester Stallone has painstakingly wandered through the groans and aching backs, that comes of aging actors playing aging characters. So it might have seemed for Bad Boys, with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith reuniting as dectectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey, as the two race to uncover a mysterious figure bent on killing Lowrey, and both deal with age, responsibility, and the faltering strength of their bond, 13 years after the previous film.

But shorn of Michael Bay, for whom the series has often seemed like a comfort zone, despite the utter critical scouring the second installment recieved, and with Belgian duo El Arbi and Fallah, most notable for the 2015 film Black and for the first two epsiodes of drug epidemic series Snowfall, in the director's chair, a nigh miraculous transformation occurs. Where previously the series have been a flabby mess of Bay's initial style, and his overblown everything and the kitchen sink explosive slow-motion mayhem, in the hands of El Arbi and Fallah, it becomes, for all the car chases, for all the gunfights, for all the slow motion, for all the Bay-isms...watchable.

It's like someone has done Bay's approach to action right, toning down the attention deficet cutting style, letting the camera hang behind vehicles during chases, or to show the choreography in fighting scenes. It, in short, plays to the strengths of Bay's style, and neatly fillets out the weaknesses, and there are multiple scenes where clarity replaces what, in Bay's style would have been pure chaos. What El Arbi and Fallah add, in the action department, is a neat sense of suspense-with one of our villains turning assassin midway into the film, and summarily dispatching several connected individuals, so the film neatly racks up tension, released in two surprisingly brutal scenes, whilst the chases and fights have a pleasing solidity to themselves, with enjoyably flashy moments from time to time.

The starkest difference, however, is in Marcus and Mike's stories in this film. This is, particularly in Marcus's case, the "we're getting too old for this" trope wrought right, with the opening chase revealled to be the duo racing to the hospital to be present for the birth of Marcus's grandson-this, and the gunning down of Mike by a mysterious bike-riding assailant, forces the former to reconsider his entire career, including a crisis of faith, and a vow not to kill again, and thus a retirement from the force. A shaken Mike, meanwhile, not only has to deal with the loss of his partner-a neat moment intercuts Marcus's morning routine post-retirement and Mike working solo, but altogether a more personal relationship with his attacker than he bargained with

This leads, when the film is not merrily charging through any number of action scenes, to a film that is just as deft in showing off its dramatic as its comedic chops-the humour hits almost every single time, including an entirely unnecessary cameo from DJ Khalid, in which I can only assume was some part of his contract as the film's musical consultant, where he seems there simply for Mike to beat him for information, whilst Marcus's attempts to juggle retirement and relucantly assisting Mike as he tracks down his assailant lead to his wife's car totalled, and our heroes having to drive home in it.

But where this film is best is in its depiction of ultra-macho men having to deal with both their morality and vulnerability-whilst Marcus is able to realise that early into the film, it takes the loss of some of Mike's closest figures to slowly realise that he is heading down a self-destructive path, and his slow return to the level, alongside his partner is well-written, in which his past begins to catch up with him, and he must deal with it, and what it presents in terms of both his mortality and vulnerability.

Whilst Bad Boys For Life may not be anything groundbreaking nor cinematically spectacular, this does not stop it being a hell of a lot of fun. In what's been a fairly fallow year for Will Smith, it's honestly rather refreshing to see him back on form, with Martin Lawrence as his equally enjoyable foil, in a film that rather simply revitalises its franchise. The Bad Boys are back, and without Bay in tow, there's almost a sense of a series once again simply enjoying the stories it can tell.

Rating: Recommended.