Fans of a pre-_Terminator_ Bay are gonna love it, and I can see where it succeeds, but personally _Bad Boys_ makes me kinda uncomfortable.

_Final rating:★★½ - Not quite for me, but I definitely get the appeal._

IDK, I really was never a big Bay fan, but I always sort of liked Will Smith, and Lawrence I only really knew from Def Comedy Jam so I was sort of 50/50 going in...

... but it was 90s Will Smith, when he was nothing but fun, so I went to go see it anyway.

And the brilliant thing is that it stands alone as a decent action/comedy, so all said and done it was already a pretty good film that hearkened back to the 80s buddy cop movies everyone loves. But then it manages to peck, and mock, and spoof Miami Vice in pretty subtle ways through the film and it manages to do it without being a blatant Scary Movie style stupid spoof. It does it in a way that it can get it's digs in and still stand on it's own as a film, so as far as I'm concerned that makes it pretty north of brilliant.

Watching _Bad Boys_ now, twenty-five years after its initial release, it's tempting to write it off as a dated, problematic, flimsy vehicle for a post-_Fresh Prince of Bel Air_ Will Smith. It is all of these things, undeniably, and yet there is something about it that elevates it above much of the similar output from the same period. The more I think about it, the more this seems to be solely to do with the chemistry between Martin Lawrence and Smith, who manage to play off one another so well that when we're forced to watch some overblown action sequence I'm wishing the film would return to the two bickering.

Stylistically, it shows off what are now well-worn Bay tropes: slow motion, wafer-thin plot, Miami bathed in permanent ochre. There's something nightmarish about many of the indoor scenes; intentionally or not, Bay manages to make these seem claustrophobic and unsettling. The action is okay—it does what it needs to but isn't spectacular and lacks the bloat and real pizazz that was to come in its sequel.

The conceit of Mike and Marcus having to swap identities is laughably formulaic but gives rise to a few entertaining moments. A lot of the writing is cheap and wouldn't pass muster today for a variety of reasons but, thankfully, it never quite tips over into egregious offensiveness.

_Bad Boys_ appeals mostly as an example of how far a film can be carried by charm and rapport; that isn't to say that anything else about the film is overly sloppy or badly done, just that it doesn't elevate itself in any other regard.