Reading my review of Bad Boys for Life, I was surprised at how nearly everything I said applied to this new movie too. And yet I gave that film 3 stars because there was apparently something in it that worked for me. Well… eject whatever that was was from Ride or Die and I go right back to disliking this franchise.

Ride or Die reunites our titular Bad Boys (Will Smitha and Martin Lawrence). They discover someone is trying to smear their former captain’s good name… so they set out to figure out who and why.

This’ll be a Hot Take McGee review since everyone on this site loved the film and the audience I was saddled with were having a great time too. I had a certain Transformers moment where I realized I’m just not on the same wavelength with some of these action flicks. I was stone-faced as my audience would break out into laughter.

So my opinion is moot. It doesn’t matter what I say – the masses have spoken… and given the state of the box office this Summer, maybe that’s a good thing… even if I wish they were speaking to Fall Guy and Furiosa and not this king trash.

The main reason I didn’t like this flick is that I didn’t give a good god damn about any of the story or the characters. None of this noise matters… it’s all just a hand-waving excuse for comedy (which I didn’t find funny) and slick action scenes (which were sometimes good). It was nearly two hours of drudgery broken up by some creative camera work that made me hope these directors get a good script next time.

A little secret here… I just don’t like Martin Lawrence. Will Smith is good… but he’s just playing Cool Guy Will Smith which he can do in his sleep. But Lawrence playing the comic relief main characters has always been unfunny and annoying to this stick-in-the-mud curmudgeon. Sure, he has all knew schtick now… but it’s all the same noise to me.

On the plus side, there a couple of impressive action set pieces. The crashing helicopter bit actually pulled me out of a stunned indifference and made me think, hey, maybe I’ll like this flick after all. There’s a pretty good shoot out (and crash) in a gator hut at the end too.

So I guess if you laugh at these two knuckleheads. care about the crime plot, and are drawn into the action, this is probably a great film. But I only got 1 out of 3 so I was mostly just bored and tired of it all.

Score: 68