Bad Boys: Ride or Die Proves Will Smith Will Always Be A Movie Star
Bad Boys: Ride or Die may find Mike and Marcus settling into old age, but it also proves that Will Smith still has movie star power.
According to Hollywood legend, Will Smith went from innocuous rapper to full-on movie star when he and director Michael Bay reached a compromise while shooting the original Bad Boys. Bay wanted Smith to go shirtless during a running scene, but Smith felt embarrassed by the idea. So they agreed to let him keep the shirt on but unbuttoned for the shot. Sure enough, the shot looked amazing, with the shirt flapping like a cape as Smith hurled himself toward the camera. He became a viable movie star.
Now in his mid 50s, Smith does not go shirtless for a running scene in this year’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die, now on Netflix. However, he does run throughout the movie, including an early action sequence when he and Marcus (Martin Lawrence), who thinks he cannot die, go on foot through a highway.
Smith looks cool, but even better is the moment at the end, when the oft-exasperated Mike begs Marcus to stop acting crazy and be careful. Smith doesn’t look young and virile anymore, but he’s still full of charisma and star power. Whether romancing Mike’s new wife Christine (Melanie Liburd), getting into a candy-colored gun fight, or becoming furious at Marcus, Smith proves time and again in Bad Boys: Ride or Die that he’s one of the greatest movie stars who ever lived.
An Undimmable Star
Perhaps the purest example of Smith’s star power occurs in the little-loved 2004 Kevin Smith flick Jersey Girl. Late in that movie, disgraced publicist Ollie Trinké (Ben Affleck) sits in an office, ready to take his second shot in the industry after a public breakdown that ended with him mocking Will Smith’s action movie credentials before the release of Independence Day. And who should show up in the office but Will Smith.
Smith plays a version of himself, just there to show no hard feelings to Ollie and heap praise upon his kids, which encourages Ollie to abandon his career and go back to stay with his daughter and father. And in that one scene, Smith oozes with charisma, controlling the screen that no one, even Affleck and co-star George Carlin, can rival.
The joke in Jersey Girl is Ollie embarrassed himself by doubting that the Fresh Prince could become a marquee name, especially in a film about fighting aliens. But by the time Jersey Girl hit theaters in 2004, we all obviously knew Ollie was wrong, having seen Smith in Independence Day, the first two Bad Boys movies, Enemy of the State, Men in Black, and more. In fact, most people didn’t even think of him as the Fresh Prince anymore.
Yet Smith faces the same skepticism even today. It’s not just the much-discussed “slap,” when the actor assaulted comedian Chris Rock for joking about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith. It’s also that Smith has gotten old and, in some online naysayers’ minds, more interested in Oscar plays than he is being an action star. Sure, he’ll team up with David Ayer to play Deadshot in Suicide Squad (a terrible movie, but not because of Smith) or with Ang Lee for the ’90s throwback Gemini Man (underrated!), but he puts more effort in dreary dramas like Emancipation, Concussion, and King Richard, the last of which finally nabbed him a Best Actor win.
It would be easy to say that the Fresh Prince aged into being a Stale King. Yes, still a king, but in many detractors’ minds, no longer exciting. And then the Bad Boys revival occurs.
For Life
The Bad Boys movies have always relied on the buddy cop dynamism of its two stars. Marcus, the wholesome if motor-mouthed family man, and Mike, the glossy man child. It’s easy to see how Lawrence can step back into his Marcus role, beginning the revival film Bad Boys For Life with a sequence of him settling into an easy chair to enjoy retirement, and then playing a goofball who gets a second chance at life in Ride or Die. But while Mike can mature, gaining a son in the first new movie and a wife in the second, he can’t slow down.
During the aforementioned candy-colored shootout sequence, Marcus gets the attention, as his feeling of invincibility gets amplified by a sugar rush, but it only works because Mike is nearby to do proper action. As Mike, Smith dives under tables, looks tough while firing a gun, and even finds time to scold his crazy partner. And he looks awesome doing it, each and every time.
Sure, Smith gets some help in Ride or Die. Directors Adil & Bilall know how to make over-the-top action legible, infusing the scenes with comic book energy. The two recent movies team the guys with a younger crew of high-tech cops, which lets them carry some of the action burden without taking away too much from Smith and Lawrence. And, of course, Smith and Lawrence have well-honed comic energy, which allows them to be irritated while still looking cool.
But Smith’s movie star charm isn’t just about Mike Lowry being invincible. Throughout Ride or Die, Mike has to reconcile with the fact that he’s joined Marcus in the ranks of married men. When an informant played by Tiffany Haddish offers information in return for sexual favors, Smith has to play up the discomfort without making a fool of his character, which he does admirably. Later when Mike passes out because of a panic attack and nearly gets run over with a car, he has to play real vulnerability while still existing in the over-the-top Bad Boys world. Of course, he does it.
It’s not just that Smith has movie star wattage every time that he’s on screen in Ride or Die. It’s that the glow remains even when he’s off-screen, a quality more common to classic idols like Cary Grant and Rudolph Valentino than it is to rappers-turned-sitcom-stars-turned-action heroes.
Running Forever
Mike’s collapse occurs while he and Marcus race through cars on a highway, one of many running scenes in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Even though he’s in his fifties, worried about his wife, and concerned for his even more off-the-rocker friend, Smith looks cool each and every time. As it was back in 1995, the true test of a movie star’s power is their ability to look cool when running. And Smith looks cool during every run in Ride or Die, even if he has to keep his shirt on now.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is now streaming on Netflix.
Written by
Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!