Will Smith returns to the big screen with Bad Boys 4 trailer
Bad Boys: Ride Or Die, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, premieres in theaters June 7
Film News Bad Boys
You can’t keep a bad boy down for long. We haven’t seen Will Smith on the big screen since The Slap (Antoine Fuqua’s Emancipation excepted as a straight-to-streaming drama). But he’s finally making his triumphant (hopefully!) return alongside Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys: Ride Or Die, the fourth installment in the beloved buddy cop comedy franchise. This is comfortable territory for Smith to rebound: a light action comedy where he gets to look cool and competent across from a supportive co-star who has his back, in a film series with a proven track record for success. If anything can get him out of Hollywood jail, it’s Bad Boys. So will audiences buy it?
Well, you can decide for yourself upon viewing the trailer, which is indeed a return to form. There’s a fun bit where Marcus (Lawrence) and Mike (Smith) squabble during a convenience store stick-up, and another where they’re caught stealing clothes from some gun-toting confederate flag enthusiasts and can’t name a single Reba McEntire song. (C’mon, those guys don’t know about “a single mom who works two jobs”?) But the bad boys also have to investigate a frame job against Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano), who was assassinated in the previous film. Unfortunately, that investigation leads to Marcus and Mike being set up as well—and they are “some terrible fuckin’ fugitives.”
The trailer release for Bad Boys: Ride Or Die comes almost exactly two years after the fateful Oscars ceremony during which Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage and found himself on the outs of the entertainment industry. In fact, it was reported at the time that Bad Boys 4 was one of multiple projects being put on “pause” in the wake of that event, but the film nevertheless moved forward. And it’s not just Smith’s comeback story, either. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who directed the previous installment Bad Boys For Life (and yes, the stars are well aware they should’ve saved that title for the fourth film), are also making their first blockbuster since their film Batgirl was shelved at Warner Bros. Discovery. Essentially, the whole Bad Boys team has something to prove, so hopefully the film can live up to it.
52 Comments
Well he’s banned from Oscars for another 9 years or so, might as well make a bunch of these shitty movies for now.
The third one was such a pleasant surprise and working Joey Pants back in, however dumb it will ultimately be, is a surefire way to get me to go see this one.
I like how Martin just keeps getting fatter, which tracks for their characters (family guy vs perpetual bachelor).
He always goes to Christian Bale levels of method.Remember his weight swings for Big Momma’s House? Cannot be good for you, Marty, but the fans appreciate the effort!
and remember all the sex changes on Martin?Back and forth over and over and nobody appreciates it todayfuckin gen z
Plus his transitioning for the movie, then de-transitioning when filming wrapped.
They’re both in their mid- to late-50s. That’s gotta be past police retirement age.
Swooping in here with a volcanic hot take: Will Smith looks bad in a goatee.
How else would you know that he’s playing Mike Lowrey?
Will Smith is an asshole and no one should go see his movies.
That’ll be easy. Will Smith is/was an enormous star and led a number of blockbusters, but among all his movies, I see NONE that I can’t live without. I didn’t even find one that I’d be mildly upset about not ever seeing again.
Mmm… Independence Day and Men in Black I’d miss. Enemy of the State barely skirts the line. Everything else, nah.
Stop it. I Am Legend is wildly re-watchable.
Training Day was good
Uhhhh……. ?
Is this like a “Dustin Hoffman was in Star Wars” thing?
My bad, I was thinking of Ethan Hawke.
Did he play Max Rebo?
In principle I’d watch Independence Day again, but I’m trying to think of a situation where that would actually happen. I’m not going to pay money for it, and if I saw it streaming for free I would probably scroll down and find something else. I guess if someone else turned it on I wouldn’t leave.
I can’t think of any movies period that I can’t live without.
I can’t think of any movies
They were also almost entirely based on his likeable/relatable persona. Not that he wasn’t talented, but you didn’t see a Will Smith movie for the transformative acting work.
I’d miss “Enemy Of The State”, and while “Omega Man” was merely average, he did good work in it.
Counterpoint: Or you could just watch characters in a movie and not think about the assholes the actors are in real life. Doing otherwise could ruin the movie and ideally you want to enjoy it.
I’ll concede Will Smith is always Will Smith in his movies, so that makes it a bit harder. But if I stopped going to movies because the actors are assholes, I’d probably have to stop going to movies. Not to mention how many of the crew are assholes.
On the flipside, I’ve only ever heard good things about Zack Snyder as a person, and he seems a decent guy. And yet I can’t say I like his movies. So if I can’t see stuff by decent people and assholes, I probably should just stick to books. Say, I haven’t read Harry Potter… Wait, she said what? *sigh*
Countercounterpointpoint: it’s not so much that he is an asshole (and cuckold, and baby, and suckerslapper), but he did something that can’t ever let me forget who he is and that is lame again. Otherwise I can project onto people whatever, but if I can only see that guy whose wife who left him and banged his son’s best friend and told everybody about it and then slapped a man who didn’t expect to be slapped. So I can’t see him as “mike”?
On one hand, I get what you’re saying and as I mentioned it’s hard to see a Will Smith character and not see Will Smith because he always plays Will Smith.
On the other hand, why the hell do we know this level of detail about the sex life of someone I’ll never meet?! Seems I’ve only myself to blame, so to be fair it’s probably up to me to compensate for it.
I just disagree that it’s your responsibility, or that there is something wrong with people who can’t disassociate a bad actor (in more than one way) from their bad deeds. Not supporting people you don’t like or who do bad things is normal. People knowing or wanting to know about celebrities lives is normal. Jada Smith made a major show (podcast or whatever it was) about their lives for years in which people found out she banged her son’s friend but did not find out she had been separated from her husband, then her husband assaulted somebody because of psychosexual aberrations related to that…that is a story that you are not crazy to have paid attention to, it happened in the middle of the Oscars. So, “it’s my problem” doesn’t really cover it, and not wanting to see bad behavior rewarded is also totally normal. Some people can’t watch Bill Shatner because they think he killed his wife, if that’s because you don’t want to support him or because you can’t look at him without thinking “wife-killer-guy” either way is fine and it’s normal that some people’s lines to cross wouldn’t be other people’s.
I just disagree that it’s your responsibility
Not 100% your responsibility, but if you participate then you are part of the situation.
Not supporting people you don’t like or who do bad things is normal. Agreed.
People knowing or wanting to know about celebrities lives is normal. It arguably shouldn’t be. Hey, they want to make their sex life public then that’s on them. But they probably wouldn’t if the public weren’t interested, so that’s kinda on us.
it’s normal that some people’s lines to cross wouldn’t be other people’s
And vice versa.
I had to wait through the wanton destruction of the comments section and it’s not-triumphant resurrection to come back here in order to say:sounds reasonableI am pretty sure that generally agreeing on things is NOT what paste wants and they will immediately re-kill the comments section. Fwiw Paste’s lists, of best albums, best songs, and even of best beers (which is rare) are actually fairly defensible, which is very high praise for a process that is basically always doomed to fail.
I could try to separate art from the artist but in Will Smith’s case I simply choose not to do so. Thank you for your suggestion.
Artist? Woah, woah, I.. I think that ship has saaaaailed a long time ago for Will Smith. Entertainer, maybe. But artist? I wouldn’t go that far. ;)No, if you can’t find Will Smith entertaining anymore then fair enough. But don’t let that exclude other movies containing other assholes. I assure you, there’s more than you think.
You’re welcome.
Tell that to the staff of this website, who all united to bravely defend him in one of the worst things ever published on here, which is increasingly saying something.
Hopefully better than the completely forgettable third entry. They’ll never top the second movie.
It’s well-established that maintaining extremely high expectations for Bad Boys sequels is the key to human happiness. Let’s do this!
I see they’ve gotten to the “we can jump out of planes and shit” phase of this series, by where they are superhuman now, not just cops. Page right out of the Fast and Furious playbook.
They hit phase in Bad Boys II.
Ha. That franchise has no use for a playbook, much less scripts!
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah…are shitty filmmakers. All sizzle no substance.
They could have called it Bad Boys 4 Life but they just had to go and fuck it up with movie 3’s title.
For sure. What does “Bad Boys 3 Life” even mean??
This is the first time I’m learning that the previous entry *wasn’t* the fourth installment.
I am genuinely surprised by how much fun this looks.
Why? The Bad Boys movies have always been fun.
Yeah, they have been…but sequels to properties that are nearly 30 years old can definitely feel like forced cash grabs and not be much fun at all, so yeah, I’m surprised.
Let’s not forget, Bad Boys for Life was the highest-grossing film of 2020!
Didn’t even know that lol still haven’t seen it but I’ll definitely catch up before seeing this one!
WTF!
WOW! WHAT A PIECE OF CAREER BURYING SHIT !!!!
Marin has apparently not stopped eating since the last film .Look Will getting married ! Will he Slap his new wife’s name out of someones mouth ?
And look at that they finally realize killing the Captain was a big mistake
Why isn’t this called Bad Boys 4Eva?
How Hollywood shows the contempt it has for moviegoers without actually saying it.
is the tone of the article…on Will Smith’s side?
ChatGPT was having an off day.
maybe the Fast and Furious films look too easy to make, that ANYONE can make one?