Parents' Guide to

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

By Jeffrey M. Anderson, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Explosive violence, nonstop swearing in 4th buddy-cop film.

Movie R 2024 115 minutes
Bad Boys: Ride or Die Movie Poster: Will Smith and Martin Lawrence stand back to back, holding guns

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 14+

Based on 13 parent reviews

age 15+

As an adult I enjoyed it. But there's a few things in it that I wasn't expecting, even after reading previous reviews. Scene in a nightclub; the married main character is told "eat my p***y" and told it would be filmed. In the background are topless girls. Too much gratuitous swearing, especially m***f***r. Nudity minimal except for nightclub scene, and the bare bum was unoffensive in my opinion. Violence is not graphic, but fairly heavy - at least two throats are slit. A prison yard fight scene is brutal, without being shown. Alligator underwater attack scene
age 14+

Movie

Bad boys ride or die is a great action packed movie a must see

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (13 ):
Kids say (6 ):

This increasingly road-weary series tries to limp into more "mature" territory with its characters and their relationships, but it has all the same old shoot-outs, explosions, and dumb humor. Indeed, Bad Boys: Ride or Die seems to be trying to follow in the tire tracks of the Fast and Furious series with its obsession with "family," but it's so half-baked and mismatched that it makes that series look like high cinema in comparison. Not to mention that the so-called character developments here go nowhere. Marcus learns to conquer his fears, and Mike learns to overcome his panic attacks (via a slap on the face), but in the long run these things don't contribute anything to the story.

Co-directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (known as "Adil & Bilall") attack the material at full speed, swirling and swinging their cameras every which way and cutting without mercy. In an early scene, Marcus looks at his watch, and the filmmakers cut to a shot of Marcus' face from the point of view of the watch. The story itself is silly and often predictable, all the way to the third-act showdown at an "abandoned amusement park," which could have provided some fun visuals but doesn't. (Even the promise of a huge albino alligator named "Duke" disappoints.) Smith and Lawrence still have an uneasy camaraderie—like an even more lowbrow Abbott and Costello—that largely consists of Mike ordering Marcus around and both men cutting each other down. Sometimes it feels like they click, and other times it feels as if they're just tired and want to be somewhere else. Bad Boys: Ride or Die ought to come with a third option: "avoid."

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