Adil El Arbi
3 connections found
Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
Let me start this review with a confession: I haven’t seen the previous three Bad Boys movies, and my introduction to this franchise is via Edgar Wright’s zany action comedy Hot Fuzz (2007).
Karate Kid: Legends (2025)
Directed by Jonathan Entwistle
influenced by Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
Themes
I said this when I reviewed Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024): something is refreshing about a franchise that knows what it is…
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Directed by Bilall Fallah
influenced Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
Music Plot
In the opening sequence, which references the action fanfare of the series’ last entry, “Bad Boys for Life” (2020), career-long cop buddies Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) are speeding through Miami in Lowrey’s Porsche, with Mike at the wheel and Marcus (of course) getting ready to throw up.
Mike’s old girlfriend Rita (Paola Núñez) is incidentally now stepping out with ambitious smoothie politician Lockwood (Ioan Gruffudd). As for Mike himself, he is now subject to panic attacks (which he doesn’t yet have the emotional maturity to acknowledge) caused by residual guilt over his son Armando (Jacob Scipio), whose grim and weirdly serious story was told four years ago in the previous film Bad Boys for Life.
2020's "Bad Boys for Life" saw Bay hand over the directing reins to the young and hungry directing duo of Adil & Bilall (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah), whose work in their native Belgium (especially 2015's "Black") impressed series producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
Speaking of, Will Smith’s Mike Lowrey gets an arc that feels like the ideal continuation based on where we last saw the character. In Bad Boys for Life (2020), Mike was shot, by his own son no less, and Bad Boys: Ride or Die does not have him go back to being his usual self, at least not always. This is a man that has been through the wringer and is still trying to pick up the pieces, even if he hides it well.
This is the first time a Bad Boys sequel has happened with such a quick turnaround, and its narrative is shockingly beholden to the previous film, 2020’s Bad Boys for Life. Anyone who forgets that entry in the franchise would be best to revisit it, if only via Wikipedia.