Sitemap
Fanfare

Pop culture conversations

Member-only story

Bad Boys (1995) — A Retrospective

7 min readApr 7, 2024

--

Press enter or click to view image in full size
Bad Boys (1995) Credit: Sony Pictures Releasing

This June 8th will see release of the fourth installment of the on and off Bad Boys series, Bad Boys: Ride or Die. I didn’t think we’d get to Part Four, but, in this time of legacy sequels, running intellectual properties into the ground through embarrassingly obvious nostalgia-baiting, here we are.

Even though it’s needless to prove my point, I’ll do it anyway.

Just last month, we got a fifth Ghostbusters movie. Or fourth if you don’t count the reboot, you monster. And a remake of Road House, of all things. And just one month after Bad Boys: Ride or Die, we’ll get the streaming release of the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film.

I could go on.

The trailer for Bad Boys: Ride or Die recently dropped, inspiring me to look back and share some thoughts on the series to date.

The script for Bad Boys was, according to director Michael Bay, “a piece of sh*t,” and seeing the finished film, that tracks. The only thing more forgettable than the villains is their scheme, a main conceit is not only forced, but pointless, and the whole affair is draped over the bones of the once-tried-and-true, now(1995)-redundant buddy cop formula.

--

--

Darren Zouga
Darren Zouga

Written by Darren Zouga

Film and story lover. Writer. Catholic. Happy to be here.