Movie Review: Bad Boys: Ride or Die

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The latest and fourth Bad Boys movie, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” is not much different than the previous three, other than this fourth movie is a continuation of the last one “Bad Boys for Life”, released in 2020.

Most remarkable about this film is that it seems that after over 2 years, Will Smith has survived the now infamous “Oscar face slap” of comedian Chris Rock, resulting in the highest high and lowest low in the entire history of show business, when Smith accepted the Oscar for “King Richard” in 2021. The weekend box office numbers for this movie will tell if most moviegoers have accepted Smith as a bankable star again.

This story, written by no less than 3 screenwriters, is about Mike Lowrey, played by Will Smith, and Marcus Burnett, played by Martin Lawrence trying to save the reputation of their late police captain Howard, played by Joe Pantoliano. It seems that Howard is being framed, by a master criminal McGrath, played by Eric Dane. The story here is all over the place and convoluted – most likely because of the lack of coherent collaboration with the 3 screenwriters. In a desperate attempt to clear Captain Howard, Marcus and Mike are chased, blown up, attacked by alligators, and are in many shootouts, in a story that is mostly about creating action scenes and not about telling a good police story.

There is a sub-story about Marcus who almost dies of a heart attack, and while in near-death limbo meets Captain Howard in heaven who tells him “It is not your time yet”. After coming back to life, there are a series of scenes and conversations about Marcus almost dying which are an attempt at humor. Almost all of these scenes fail to be interesting or funny.

Most of the same actors from the last movie return for this one, including Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, and Paola Núñez, with a new replacement actress Tasha Smith, playing Marcus Burnett’s wife, another example of missing continuity to a previous movie because the previous actor either wanted too much money or was not available. In my opinion, this new actress did not work in her role as Marcus’ wife.

Tiffany Hadish is also in this film, in a scene where she plays some kind of a Madam at a strip club, where it seems like she was just thrown into this movie to increase the box office, where her presence was completely unnecessary within this story.

Within the comedic scenes in this fourth installment, in almost all cases they are all created by Martin Lawrence, who has a face and presence that makes whatever he does funny. There is no denying that Smith and Lawrence have onscreen chemistry that since 1995 has produced a significant police-buddy franchise.

The reasons for the poor Rotten Tomatoes ratings of only 64% are largely due to the poor screenplay, and insane disconnected action scenes, trying to unravel the framing of Captain Howard. Time will tell if this latest movie kills the franchise or if they will make a 5th film.

My rating for this film is a passable 70% and a moderate recommendation, mostly for Martin Lawrence’s comedic scenes.

Movie Review: Young Woman and the Sea

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The new movie Young Woman and the Sea is another great historical movie about an important person and event that most people have never heard about.

Trudy Ederle was the first woman to swim across the English Channel, on August 6, 1926 – an extreme athletic achievement that over the last 100 years has killed 10 people. The distance between France and England is 21 miles, with an ocean that has severe waves, jellyfish, sharks, and in some areas unexploded mines from previous wars that were never removed. There are ocean shallows that are near the England coast where boats cannot follow the swimmer and in the case of this story, the swimmer can get lost very easily and drown. This dangerous problem of the ocean shallows near the coast of England provides an impressive emotional ending to this very good story.

This film stars Daisy Ridley as Trudy and follows her very unlikely life as the daughter of a butcher from Manhattan. Trudy’s interest in swimming came after a horrific boat accident in New York Harbor that burned and sank. 847 people died, most of them because they never learned how to swim. As Trudy’s interest in swimming grew she had to endure years of resistance from her father, and chauvinism because she was a female who wanted to swim in competition.

At age 19, in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Ederle won a gold medal as one of the members of 4×100 meter freestyle relay. Soon after she announced to her family that she wanted to swim the English Channel and unfortunately her coach for her first attempt sabotaged her swim, by giving her tea that made her sleep. Why he was not prosecuted for this, was never explained in this movie.

At the end of this film, it was mentioned – in the history of ticker tape parades in New York City, the one thrown for Ederle in 1926 still stands as the largest in history after she swam the English Channel.

Overall the acting in this film was outstanding, and like the recent “Nyad” starring Annette Benning – anyone seeing this movie has to admire what it took these actors to swim in the ocean to film these two impressive real-life stories.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film is a high 84% with my rating 90% and a solid recommendation.

Movie Review: Ezra

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The story of the new movie “Ezra” about two separated parents trying to raise their Autistic child reminds everyone that raising a child with Autism requires extreme levels of patience and tolerance for loud screaming, erratic and sometimes dangerous behavior. The parents of Ezra, played by William A. Fitzgerald are played by real live couple Rose Byrne as Jenna and Bobby Cannavale as Max with
Robert De Niro playing Max’s father Stan.

The unusual part of this story is that Max is trying to make a living as a standup comedian in New York City, which is one of the reasons for the divorce of Max and Jenna, as well as their many disagreements about how to raise Ezra. I was surprised that most of the scenes of Max doing standup did not have enough funny moments to make him convincing as a standup comedian.

After a huge disagreement with a doctor over his prescribing drugs for Ezra, Max assaults the doctor in his office and he is arrested and jailed. Unfortunately the rest of the story is mostly about a road trip with Max taking taking Ezra across the country to escape the doctor’s diagnosis and then to Los Angeles and a surprise invitation to be on the Jimmy Kimmel show. It is this long road-show story that is where this screenplay mostly fails as it mutates into a series of sub stories as Max and Ezra encounter different situations during their trip. Max’s father Stan and his ex-wife Jenna drive across the country, trying to stop Max even putting out an Amber alert. There is an emotional scene between Stan and Max that is very well acted, but there are not nearly enough scenes like this to rescue what could have been a much better story about raising an Autistic child.

Actor Tony Goldwyn has a small part in this movie as Jenna’s boyfriend and also directed this movie. Whoopi Goldberg plays Jayne, Max’s agent in a surprisingly small part.

This film is another example of how difficult it is to write a great screenplay when you consider this could have been a great movie, but went down an incorrect path which is why the Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a low 69%. This story missed the mark in two many areas, and I do not recommend it, agreeing with the low critics reviews.