★★★

Released unto a post-slap world, the fourth Bad Boys carries the double jeopardy of also being Will Smith’s first shot at a box office still reeling from its darkest year. There’s a reason they’ve called this one Ride or Die. Fear not. In short, unlikely financial fallibility is about as dangerous as things get here, frenetic direction and kooky visuals only going so far to disguise the film’s safer instincts. Moreover, so assured is Smith’s gigawatt charisma – on screen at least – that it’s an effort to remember the bulb ever blinked. Almost thirty years on from its debut, the Bad Boys franchise has fuel in its turbo yet.

Of course, things were much simpler then. Back in 1995. Back when a police procedural was just a police procedural, with no further expectation of flash and whistle. Martin Lawrence had top billing in those days – he was, after all, the bigger name – with Smith his co-star. As odd couple Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey, they ruled the streets of Miami. Good cops, bad boys. Much has changed. Not the latter part – there’s a nice riff, late in the film, on Run-D.M.C.’s Peter Piper – but the swank stakes are way up. Taller buildings, cooler cars, faster action, hotter stars. The influence of the Fast and Furious films is strong with this one, certainly in the right-to-it opening flush.

Save for a theosophically unhinged subplot – an early heart attack briefly kills and reincarnates Marcus – the plot is, at least, business as banally usual. That’s no critique. So much here is incomprehensible that a little rote plotting proves welcome. When Joe Pantoliano’s Captain Conrad, late of this parish, is posthumously accused of corruption, only Mike and Marcus have faith enough in his good name to seek out the real rogues. With Mike’s vagabond son, Armando (Jacob Scipio) as their only lead, the pair soon find themselves on the run and with nought but the other to trust.

Helmed, as before, by Adil & Bilall, the film is more bravura than grace but enjoys a certain vim and brazen vigour. It’s the sort of confidence that can only be found in the sequel to a legacy smash hit. Their aesthetic is kitchen sink chaos. Not a shot here fails to serve in the name of the whiz and bang. Indeed, it’s a rare and jarring scene that sees the camera actually stop moving. Far more common are shots zooming through bullet holes, ebbing in and out of security screens, or literally captured atop one character’s revolver. That one’s a doozie.

A raft of guest players do well to stand out in the mayhem. Tiffany Haddish has an all too brief riot in her cameo, while Vanessa Hudgens and Alexander Ludwig’s likeable AMMO experts, Kelly and Dorn, are now a couple. Each pales to Dennis Greene, however, whose gamer-boy Reggie steals the best sequence of the film. All for the call of duty. If, meanwhile. Eric Dane makes for a rather forgettable villain, a turncoat in rank serves up instant punchability as an all-too-obvious slug. All coalesce for a pleasingly bombastic climax in a disused alligator-themed amusement park. The explosions are big, the gater’s gob is bigger still.

For all the fun, a little less – of more or less everything – mightn’t have gone a miss. Take Lawrence. Much as Marcus brings home the funny in the film – ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, motherf*****s!’ – there’s something a smidgeon demeaning about the buffoonery demanded in his more outlandish material. The Miami skyline gets more than it bargained for in one such instance. Smith’s is a sturdier turn, even finding a flavour of dramatic meat to chew through. Well into his fifties, Mike may not be so infallible these days as once he was. Now who does that remind you of?

T.S.