Nice to see you again, fans of the cinema! This is the Face-Off, where two movies enter and both movies leave, but one leaves in a slightly better light. Yes, here we take two competitors and compare their key elements and see who comes out the champion. It's a fierce competition that results in blood, tears, and online arguments, but the more brutal the battle, the sweeter the victory.
This weekend sees the release of the latest film from actor Will Smith, which sees him playing double duty as himself in the movie GEMINI MAN. The movie finds Smith back in action movie mode in what looks like some surreal action sequences against a younger version of himself, so we thought it would be nice to take a look back at two of the actor's other action flicks. The fact the actor also has another movie on the horizon, BAD BOYS FOR LIFE, makes this a prudent time to take a look back at the previous two entries in the chaotic action series — BAD BOYS and BAD BOYS II.
The first movie in the series turned both Smith and Martin Lawrence into legit movie stars, and the two would go on to have successful movie careers for the rest of the 90s and into the 00s (well, one of them may have had done a *tad* better than the other). They then reunited for the sequel, which had six-times the budget and made double the money, and remains one of the most bonkers, questionable, madly entertaining big-budget action flicks ever.
Now it's time to head on down and see which BAD BOYS is the baddest of the bunch, so get your two guns and get ready to jump in the air for some slo-mo shooting, because this Face-Off is about to go off the chain.
*Given the recent Face-Off of BAD BOYS v. RUSH HOUR, the included opinions for the former remain unchanged, with the exception of comparisons to BAD BOYS II. *
Original Thoughts: Audiences didn't have to wait for Michael Bay to start blowing up whole cities using asteroids and robots to see the man had a knack for over-the-top action and chaos filled with over-dramatic intensity and style. Even as far back as his first movie, BAD BOYS, he was relishing in taking every moment where even something mildly exciting was happening and making it as ridiculous and unabashed as possible. Whether it be the gunfight scenes that operate with zero regards for civilian casualties or Will Smith running with an open shirt through the streets of Miami, Bay makes everything barrel at a mile a minute and only gives the viewer a chance to slow down and catch a breath when things go into slo-mo, the characters looking very dramatically at something while covered in sweat (which everyone seems to be). This style is perfectly suited to a mid-90s action movie when it was still okay for cop-action flicks to be as ridiculous as possible, and Bay gives it that sun-drenched vibe and makes excellent use of the leading men at the core. Let it never be said Bay has never had a distinct style that makes a movie with so little going below the surface look so effortlessly cool.
New Thoughts: As we will get to next door, he isn't *quite* the Bay we have come to argue over, but what I admire about his work here is he while he still proves he can shoot an action flick like no one else around, he's not so indulgent that he can leave some room to breathe, and where Smith and Lawrence have enough charm to work a scene with nothing but their wits.
A lot changed between 1995 and 2003, from the way movies are made to the way Bay honed his style as a director. That could be a reason why BAD BOYS II feels so much more overblown than the first one, but the fact of the matter is the sequel is simply the movie he would've made the first time around had he had $110 million increased to the budget and vastly more toys to play with. If the first BAD BOYS showcased the core of Bay's sensibilities, BAD BOYS II finds him taking his own unique brand of high-octane absurdity to ridiculous levels and letting it take over every single frame. Single conversations are filmed while drenched in the neon glow of nearby bar signs, with those same interactions filmed from 10 different angles each, hodgepodged together in the editing room. Characters are more sun-drenched and sweating, half the time we see people it's from a low angle, and not a single moment goes by where the scene doesn't seem fueled by cocaine and Bay shouting to the crew “Every color of light! I want every color of light in this scene!” Even a standoff between Lowrey and some criminals can't just be a standoff, with Bay probably spending $2 million to have the camera circulate out of one room and into another with a wide-angle lens. This is Bay at his absolute Bay-ness, blending adrenaline-pumping action with the grace of a trashy beer commercial. To some that's the mad genius of a man who makes movies his way and for his crowd, which is even admirable to a point. But the movie he made also represents the worst of his impulses: You have the bloated length, driven by a cavalcade of explosions and screaming, sweaty dudes; the sheer incohesive, propulsive nature of the plotting, where chunks of the story feel lost amidst the chaos; women used for little but fodder for men to ogle, etc. Yes, BAD BOYS represents a director who has honed his style, and in the case of Bay, that's just as much a perk as it is a fault.
Original Thoughts: Thank god for Bay making this movie look as stylish as it is and for making the action scenes as ludicrous and entertaining as they are, because the script BAD BOYS is just plain bad. Written by , Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland and Doug Richardson and filled with every cop cliche you can think of, without the improvosation by Smith and Lawrence and the guidance of Bay this would've just made the straight-to-video pile. Some bad guys break into the police department and steal some pricey drugs, and then across two hours the main characters have to, I guess, find them and stop them, but aren't that great in going about it. Trying to capitalize on the fish-out-water scenario, for some reason, the story comes to a standstill when Lawrence's Burnett and Smith's Lowery have to play a game of Wife Swap and live in each other's shoes. Why the story takes this route, god only knows. Because of it we get a lot of whacky shenangians and misunderstandings that might, at their best, give the story an action-comedy vibe rather than a straighter action flick. It's such a simple story that jumps through bizarre hoops, only to bounce from set piece to set piece or joke to joke that it's hard to discern if there even is a story. Again, praise be to Lawrence and Smith — who were told by Bay to improvise given the bad script — for making these moments entertaining.
New Thoughts: Look, the fact of the matter is the script work for BAD BOYS is bad, but it's damn-near THE SOCIAL NETWORK compared to what was written next door. The jokes work better; the story, although a mess, is still more focused than what goes on in the sequel and; while the cast isn't as colorful and given much to do, still feel like they have a place here.
You wouldn't think when looking at the 147-minute runtime that BAD BOYS II was just about two Miami cops hunting down some drug dealers, but hoo-boy, the sheer audacity of this movie is how it found the stones to be about nothing else. Written by Ron Shelton and Jerry Stahl, the movie doesn't have plot points so much as it does explosive, expensive action scenes that the two leads need to get to as a way of destroying millions in property, and all to maybe find out a small detail about the drug lord and what he plans to do next. In terms of those “developments”, the writing offers nothing new to the table, with a drug lord smuggling some stuff, and our titular bad boys having to stop them. Like the first, the writers crafted the partnership of Burnett and Lowrey with a flippant but loving, machismo-driven friendship that involves a lot of shouting at one another — and here those moments are stretched to endurance-testing levels, often with little charm and substance. As a way of trying to test the two Gabrielle Union's character is thrown in, and though up to some stuff of her own is buried under the antics of the boys, and spends most of her time on-screen acting as a love interest who causes some rift between the two. There are hints that the movie means to test the conflicting natures of the boys (Lowrey's gung-ho attitude and Burnett's more passive stance) but at the end of the day, they never feel tested as they eventually gear up and leap into action together. Maybe that's the theme of the story, that no matter what they have each other's back, but when it comes to writing a movie that's not character development; it's a character trait stretched to epic length. Whatever story, character development and all else that makes a script work that's here, it's all used as a means to get Bay to a place where he can blow it all up.
Bits:
Car Jack Gone Wrong
Drug Heist
Friend Gunned Down
Smith Shoved Throw Dramatic Window
Apartment Shoot Out
Bathroom Fight
Bar Fight
Home Invasion Gone Wrong
Questioning Jojo
Lowery on the Move
Final Shoot Out
Race on the Runway
Lines:
Store Clerk: “Freeze, mother bitches!”
Lowrey: “You freeze, bitch! Now back up, put the gun down, and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubblicious.”
Burnett: “And some Skittles.”
—–
Burnett: “You forgot your boarding pass.”
—–
Lowrey: “It's $105,000 and this happens to be one of the fastest production cars on the planet. Zero to sixty in four seconds, sweetie. It's a limited edition.”
Burnett: “You damn right it's limited. No cup holder, no back seat. Just a shiny dick with two chairs in it. I guess we the balls just draggin' the fuck along.”
—–
Lowrey: “Don't be alarmed, we're negros.”
Burnett: “Naw man, naw. There's too much bass in your voice. That scares white folks. You got to sound like them. [high voice] 'We were wondering if we could borrow some brown sugar…?'”
—–
Mott: “That's flesh that you're shoveling into your mouth. You know, that was, like, a living, breathing creature. You know, it probably had a name.”
Burnett: “It's just bologna. My bologna has a first name.”
—–
Lowrey: “What are you talking about, man? You sleep with a beautiful woman everyday.”
Burnett: “I'm married. That's what married means. It means you sleep together, but you can't get none.”
—–
Lowrey: “Marcus, I just have one question for ya bro. How the hell you gonna leave my ass at a gun fight to go get the car!”
—–
Burnett: “If you don't sit your lanky ass down right now, bottom-line, I will knock you the fuck out.”
—–
Lowery: “Now that's how you supposed to drive! From now on that's how you drive!”
Bits:
KKK Shootout
Therapy Sessions
Shootout with Haitians
Highway Chase
Captain Loses It
Home Invasion
Video Confessional
Dead Bodies on the Wind Shield
Train Fight
Interrogating the Date
Cuban Gun Fight
Hummer Escape
Lines:
Burnett: “Shit just got real.”
—–
Lowrey: “We ride together, we die together. Bad boys for life.”
—–
Burnett: “Have my daughter back by 10:01. If she's not back by 10:01 I'm in the car, locked, loaded and hunting your motherfucking ass down.
—–
Lowrey: “These dudes is off the chain!”
—–
Lowery: “Blue power, motherfuckers! Miami PD!”
Burnett: “Aw, damn! It's the niggras!”
—–
Burnett: “This is some sick shit!”
Lowrey: “It’s about to get sicker.”
—–
Customer: “You two muthafuckas need Jesus.”
—–
Lowrey: “Now *that's* how you supposed to shoot! From now on, that's how you shoot!
—–
Blond Dread: “Who that? Who in MY HOUSE?”
Lowery: “I'm the Devil! Who's asking?”
—–
Lowrey: “I was shooting. I did at lot of shooting. But I'm not saying I shot you in the ass… but I'm not saying I didn't shoot you. But damn! Somebody shot you in the ass!
—–
Burnett: “You a virgin?”
Reggie: “Yes, sir.”
Burnett: “Good. Keep it that way. Ain't gonna be no fucking tonight.”
Lowery: “You ever made love to a man?”
Reggie: “No.”
Lowery: “You want to?”
Original Thoughts: Smith and Lawrence are this movie's biggest saving grace, showcasing their talents beyond what their TV shows were providing them with at the time. Not only are they expert comedians getting let off the leash, but they also completely fall under Bay's spell and commit fully to the over-dramatic action and gunplay. From the moment they're first seen onscreen, cruising around in Lowery's car and bickering over Lawrence eating fast food and making a mess, the two seamlessly come off as men who love each other like brothers, showing it through fast, macho banter and even playful hostility. Burnett's character development may never get beyond “I'm married and not having sex!” and it gets laid on thick that Lowery wants to be seen as more than a guy with tons of cash and lady friends, but their chemistry matters more than their development. Through the improv, they perfectly complement each other's comedy, like when Smith added in the “…and get me a pack of Tropical Fruit Bubbalicious,” with Lawrence touching it up with the simple, “and some Skittles.”
New Thoughts: This first movie made great use of the two actors' skills, capitalizing on their chemistry by giving them ample room to play around. Their very much a saving grace of the the whole thing, even if the story itself doesn't provide much of a story for them to do more than banter. Having them switch lives for the sake of the case was an odd move, and what the sequel does so better, as I will explore, is that it makes time (between the shouting) to push the two characters through larger hoops emotionally — if not chaotically.
As mentioned to your left, as messy, chaotic, and unfocused as the meat of the movie is, some nuggets are improved upon for the sequel, and one of them is the dynamic between the two leads. Yes, they spend a ton of time yelling at and chastising each other, but that's just the uber-masculine personalities of the two coming out and trying to top the other. They're loud and crass towards one another, but it does feel rooted in something loving, and that's where the script does earn a mild pat on the page. Whereas the characters (and the actors) seemed hesitant to show any sort of genuine affection, there are several moments where you do feel them getting more close. The scene in the video confessional, as lame as it is on a humor front (more on that later), it does provide a moment for the two to share some honest feelings, which then bubble up more during the dock scene and as Lowrey comes to make amends going into the third act. The jumbled script does provide several reasons for their animosity — Lowrey dating Burnett's sister and Burnett wanting a transfer — but neither feels fleshed out enough to be meaningful. That being said, Smith and Lawrence have just enough testosterone-driven chemistry as last time, and they get just a tad bit more mileage out of everything this time around, which is impressive considering just how absurd everything else around them is.
Original Thoughts: BAD BOYS sports the kind of action you won't find in movies anymore less it be covered in CGI to the point of seeming off-putting. By that I mean you have completely over-the-top gunfights in the middle of screaming crowds, with no one caring about anyone's safety or really anything else around them; The heroes unironically slide across the hoods of their cars as a way of getting to the other side in the coolest way possible; Everyone shoots wildly with no tact while taking cover behind flammable objects, all before lighting one up with a clever catchphrase. It's unapologetically brash and entirely devoid of substance, but its endlessly entertaining, and with Bay behind the lens you get those *chef's kiss* stylistic choices that make the familiar seem distinct, and makes these two men known more for comedy seem like true action stars.
New Thoughts: The action in this first movie provides more than enough thrills to rank as some of the craziest in the 90s action flick canon, but they cannont compare to the gargantuan absurdity in the sequel. Yeah, there may be a cool chase scene with a clever line or two, but then BAD BOYS II rolls up and bashes 10 cars together as explosions stream the road, with Smith dropping numerous one-liners in the process. There me a final shootout, but the sequel has several climax-level shootouts where hundreds of bullets fly with gleeful abandon, with Smith firing two guns whilst jumping through the air.
Everything said about the action in first BAD BOYS, as well as can be said of any over-the-top action flick, can be applied to this movie, but with a $130 million budget and a director more ballsy than ever. The action in this movie is absolutely bonkers, with no regard paid to human life, reason, or the laws of physics, and the only attention paid to how much carnage can be thrown at the screen before sending people into a seizure. Every sequence is drawn out to about 15 minutes, with bullets flying madly in any direction and no one taking the care to aim, with no less than entire buildings toppling down in the process. So many explosions, so many scenes of Will Smith in slow motion with two guns, so much…muchness. The movie HOT FUZZ references this movie several times (and even has it playing at one point), with Nick Frost's character yearning for high-speed pursuits, leaping through the air with two guns. All those tropes are brought madly to life by a man with bottomless cash and endless recklessness, and no matter how emptyheaded and careless it all is, and all across two and a half hours, it can't help but come off as its own brand of audacious art.
Original Thoughts: As I've covered, Smith and Lawrence are two very funny men. Smith was becoming a superstar thanks to the comedy FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR, while Lawrence had his show, MARTIN, both of which were two of the most popular TV comedies during their runs. So together, they complement each other's humor with brotherly banter that could go for ages as long as Bay kept the cameras running. Several funny lines come from the duo being let loose with an R-rating, and their humor bounces so well of each other that when they're apart, things can start to feel a little flat. Side characters like Joe Pantoliano and Tea Leoni get good back and forths with the boys, and all this makes BAD BOYS one of Bay's funnier movies, which is a good thing considering his movies work better the less seriously you take them.
New Thoughts: I won't say the comedy in this first movie is more “pure” than the sequel, but it certainly feels more nature and less reliant on gross-out gags. These two men are incredibly funny, and all the best laughs come from the two trading barbs either when they're driving around or in the middle of a gunfight. And like I said in the “Director” section, Bay exhibits some relative restraint, giving more room for the humor to flow than the sequel.
Oddly enough, considering how funny the previous movie can be, one of the worst qualities about BAD BOYS II is how hard it tries to be funny and how it goes so far that it mostly becomes grotesque or just lazy. The banter between Smith and Lawrence, when not bogged down by endless gunfire, can have that charm from the first, but so much else is attempted through big sight gags that it's just cruel. Take anything involving the dead bodies from the mortuary, like when they're thrown out of the car to hit the windshield. They're run over by the duo, with nothing by an “Oh, damn” as a response, with whatever excuse for a punchline never justifying the horrid visual. Then anything involving dead body parts in general, like Lowrey stumbling upon the aftermath of the butchering of someone in a kitchen (the thugs did it while they knew exterminators were hanging around?), or when they're rooting around through dead bodies for drugs. It's all played for cheap laughs that are always grosser than anything, which is so far beyond what makes this movie funny that it begs the question of what the hell the writers were thinking. Even the “rat f**king” bit was so crass that it became unfunny…only for it to kind of become funny again.
Awards:
Nothing special
*1 Win and 3 Nominations* Per IMDb
Praise:
Rotten Tomatoes: 42% (78% Audience)
IMDb: 6.9
Metacritic: 41 (8.7 Audience)
Money:
$65 million domestic ($141 million global)
Awards:
Nothing special
**Another 5 Wins & 13 Nominations per IMDb**
Praise:
Rotten Tomatoes: 23% (78% Audience Score)
Metacritic: 38 (4.0 Audience)
IMDb: 6.6
Money:
$138 million ($273 million globally)
Going back to listen to Mark Mancina's score for BAD BOYS is like getting in a time machine and going back to a time and genre when it was okay for intense action movie scores to have sweet guitar riffs and sweet saxophone solos blended. Those are the kinds of tracks you're gonna hear when you rewatch BAD BOYS, with Mencina occasionally rising to the challenge when Bay whats to get super intense. He successfully makes the scene with Smith running around Miami with an open shirt that has a fast-paced theatricality to it, which is the only way in which Smith running around as that should feel. Mancina also gives the movie at least a glimmer of a theme, with the opening “Prologue” and a methodic sound perfect for throwing on sunglasses as you hop into a convertible, getting a bit of style as things speed up. But, as we will get into more with the sequel, a claim to fame with the movie is the soundtrack, featuring rap and R&B hits from the likes of 2Pac, Warren G, Diana King. If Mancina's score is enough to make you think fondly about the style of the 90s, the music from the various artists will force you to scour all the thrift shops you can find for over-sized shirts and Kangol caps. These songs give the movie a smoother, more stylish flow where Mancina's score would have it feel boxed in like a typical action flick. This was blown too far more impressive levels come the sequel, though.
Getting this out of the way first, Trevor Rabin's score for BAD BOYS II is a bit of a mess. Blending hard rock music with electronic sounds makes for a noisy, intrusive series of tracks that do nothing but juice up the already juiced up action scenes. That may be enough for those looking to get amped up to obscene levels, but really, it makes me long for the use of Mancina's old-school score. That's not to say all of it is bad, and it works better when paired with more overly-dramatic cues, like whenever Smith and Lawrence realize how real the shit just got. But praise by to the orchestrated soundtrack from then-known-as P. Diddy, working through his then-new label at Universal Records and collaborating with artists like Pharrell Williams, Jay-Z, Nelly, Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige and more. The songs have the style, energy, and earworm potential to give the movie just the right increase of energy where the score fails. Songs like “Shake Ya Tailfeather” are examples of early-00s hip-hop genius, while Blige's “Didn't Mean” has that R&B feel that keeps the spirit of the original's soundtrack alive. Say what you will about the movie, but the music that stands out here is legitimately great, and I only hope the new movie gets the same treatment.
The first BAD BOYS is a solid showcase of Smith, Lawrence, and Bay's talents, providing just enough laughs and wild thrills to be entertaining in spite of its obvious flaws. However, that very takeaway is, like the action itself, dialed up to 11 for the sequel. BAD BOYS II is a straight-up bad movie. The plotting is ridiculous, the character development makes efforts only to get jumbled with everything else, the editing is enough to drive a person insane, and many of the attempts at humor seem like the work of actual crazy people. And yet, it is so ridiculous it can't be but be entertaining in ways the original, as well as many other cop movies, don't even dare to be, to the point where it's even endearing. It turns mindless entertainment into a piece of performance art, wherein it achieves in taking all manner of logic and reason and bury them under a pile of charred cars and bloody bodies. Mix in the admirable work of Smith and Lawrence and some great songs and you have a movie you can stand in a class of "so bad it's good" that if you reach the credits with your sanity in check, you may want to start it all over again.