Mr. Movie: ‘Bad Boys for Life’ has a high body, bullet, chase count

I quickly lost count of the body count. It’s a bad boys movie. They have bodies to count. Lots of them. Bullets to count, too. The counting is accompanied by car chases, motorcycle chases, water chases and bunches of chases on foot and through buildings. All the while bullets are flying like flocks of birds and bad guys die in bunches while the bullets whizzing by the good guys, miss.

It’s the genre.

This is the third time Will Smith and Martin Lawrence have done Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. It’s 17-years since the last film and Burnett is now a grandfather and wants to retire. Lowrey does not. He loves being a bad boy. Then a Mexican thug on a mission guns him down. His mom wants vengeance for something Lowrey did to her and the boy’s father years ago.

That leads us back to the first paragraph.

Lowrey almost dies, wants to find out who tried to kill him, and joins the hunt done by a team led by a lady detective who just “happens” to be his former lover. Burnett doesn’t want to go along but — hey — it wouldn’t be bad boy anything if he didn’t. So they go through recognizable and very predictable action movie territory to get to the bottom of who is killing whom and why.

Recognizable, predictable and fun. At least more fun than I remember from the 1995 and 2003 movies. Maybe I’m less of a cynic now than I was then. Maybe. Or maybe this is just a better movie. Whatever it is, and while very, very predictable, “Bad Boys for Life” isn’t bad.

Smith and Lawrence do what they both do best. Smith has one character and is the same from movie to movie. In action movies he’s the straight, serious and very skilled action hero. Lawrence has gained some weight and looks more marshmallow than action hero. He provides what is supposed to pass for comedy. Lawrence tries but he isn’t all that funny.

Never has been.

The real humor in “Bad Boys for Life” belongs to Joe Pantoliano who reprises his role as Captain Howard. Unfortunately, Pantoliano — who always brings a ton of energy to a part — isn’t in the movie that much or enough.

Transformers producer and director Michael Bay did the first two films but skips this one. The directing chores are done by relatively unknowns Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. They pad their film with lots of drone shots of Miami, slow and regular-motion scenery and lots of unnecessary scenes.

The key word is pad. A big part of the padding is a screenplay by a freshman writer and from Peter Craig who helped pen “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay” parts 1 and 2 and “The Town” and Joe Carnahan who co-wrote the most excellent “Narc” and “Smokin’ Aces.”

In spite of the length, “Bad Boys for Life” is entertaining. However, an edit by the directors to take the padding out makes it an even better film. Oh, back to Bay and the reason I mentioned him. There is going to be a fourth film. He’s directing.

So maybe we really do get bad boys for life.

▪ Rated R for violence, language and mature themes. It’s playing at the AMC Classic Kennewick 12, at the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco and Queensgate 12s and the Southgate 10 and at Walla Walla Grand Cinemas.

▪ Rating: 4 out of 5

Oscar-Nominated Movies on Tri-Cities Screens

I can’t remember so many Oscar-nominated movies being on Tri-Cities screens so close to an Academy Awards telecast. This year’s broadcast is on February 9. Three that aren’t on area screens can easily be found on Netflix. Several others can be rented or purchased.

Here’s the list of films you can see in Tri-Cities now and the nominations:

“1917” — best picture, director, cinematography

“Little Women” —best picture, best actress, best supporting actress

“Jojo Rabbit” —best picture, best supporting actress

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — best picture, director, best actor, supporting actor

“Ford v Ferrari” — best picture

These can be found on Netflix:

“Marriage Story” — best picture, best actor, best actress

“The Irishman” — best picture, director, supporting actors

“Two Popes” — best actor, supporting actor

“Joker”, “Harriet”, “Bombshell” and “Judy” have Oscar nominated performances and can be rented or purchased.

Snubs and other comments

The Academy Award voters pick from their category of expertise. In other words, directors only vote for directors, actors for actors and so on. They always miss performances or movies that ought to be at least nominated.

This year’s list is bigger than usual.

Critics quickly pointed out the lack of women in the best director category. There are several on the list but the biggest knock is Greta Gerwig whose work on “Little Women” knocked me out. Others of note include Alma Har’el. She did “Honey Boy” and it also saw Shia LeBeouf miss a best acting or at least a supporting acting pick. Lulu Wang is another. She did “The Farewell.” Her star Awkwafina — thought to be a favorite — also got ignored.

“The Farewell” didn’t work for me but Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart” did. She also deserved a nomination.

This year’s biggest ignore of them all is Jennifer Lopez whose performance in “Hustlers” had Oscar written all over it. Instead Kathy Bates gets notice for “Richard Jewell.” She was good, but really folks, it’s Kathy Bates and she’s always good. And Margot Robbie’s acting in “Bombshell” isn’t close to as good as Lopez’s work in “Hustlers.”

This one is a real slap in the face to an actress who finally found a role to show off her considerable skills.

Also missing? “Knives Out” from the best picture category. The Academy rules say there can be 10 pictures. This year’s nominations number nine. So why not add “Knives Out” to the list? Or “Rocketman.” Both are great movies.

As long as we’re there, what about “Uncut Gems?” It features an also ignored best acting performance from Adam Sandler who was left out in the cold.

Speaking of cold, the film that did deserved freezing out is “Frozen II.” Criticism is being tossed out for it being left out of the best animated film group. Stop it. The miss is deserved.

This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Mr. Movie: ‘Bad Boys for Life’ has a high body, bullet, chase count."