in the middle stretch — you never get the
sense that Yan, whose only previous feature
is absurdist satireDead Pigs, has a firm grip
on the narrative. McGregor’s antagonist —
who runs the town and has a penchant for
both African art and peeling the face off
rivals — nibbles rather than chews scenery;
he isn’t big and flamboyant enough to pose
a genuine threat.
Yan and Hodson throw a ton of ideas
at the screen, most of which stick: Harley
interacting with her own voiceover, Marilyn
Monroe fantasies, direct stares to camera,
and a fun running gag about the grievances
every character has with Ms Quinn — the most
exquisite delivers a terrific Frida Kahlo gag.
Conceived withJohn Wick’s Chad Staheski
and his stunt team 87Eleven, the action
sequences are muscular and confident —
a creative baseball bat frenzy to Ram Jam’s
Black Betty( bam-a-lam), a fight in a funhouse
that has the feel of ’60sBatman— but Yan
still manages to insert some personality
in there: as Harley double-teams with Black
Canary, keep ’em peeled for a hair-tie handoff
that any woman in a fight would relate to.
It’s a lovely touch that would never occur to
the David Ayers of this world.
It’s a film forged in the age of #MeToo/
#TimesUp but wears any messaging lightly.
This is just a group of women supporting
each other, getting things done. It’s so much
fun when the group finally come together, it
feels like a misstep not getting them together
sooner and more often. Save Harley, the
characters aren’t deeply drawn but they
are winningly played: Smollett-Bell is
authentically hard-as-nails, Winstead is
funny as an assassin who takes umbrage that
people get her superhero name wrong, and
Perez reminds you she is not in nearly enough
movies.But the MVP is Robbie, who lends
Harleycharming quirk and believable menace,
hinting at Harley’s inner life without reams
of dialogue.When she’s on screenBirds Of
Preyhas the impact of a baseball bat to the
head.IAN FREER
ON SCREEN
VERDICT It’s messy, with a middle section
that sags, but Birds Of Prey has vibrancy,
anarchy and balls to spare. Harley and
Joker are dead. Long live Harley Quinn.
DANNY BUTTERMAN, NICK Frost’s character
in Hot Fuzz, convinced Simon Pegg ’s Nicholas
Angel that Bad Boys II is the pinnacle of modern
action cinema. Sorry, Danny, but you were miles
off. Michael Bay’s ballad of bombast is about as
obnoxious, excessive, incoherent, and excessively
obnoxiously incoherent as action movies get. Less
this shit just got real, more this just got real shit.
So, 17 years on, the prospect of Will Smith and
Martin Lawrence returning for one last go at loud
cars and even louder one-liners was a frankly
unedifying one. However, with Bay a (mostly)
distant memory, replaced by hotshot Belgian
directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Bad
Boys For Life is something of a blast: funny,
occasionally surprising, and self-aware enough
to challenge the mindset of the fi rst two movies.
Perhaps refl ecting their divergent statuses
over the last decade, the focus here is squarely on
Smith’s Mike Lowrey, who fi nds himself between
the crosshairs of a genuinely menacing villain
(Jacob Scipio). Not only is Lowrey being
challenged physically, he’s constantly being
challenged to do something about his fl ashy,superfi cial, but ultimately empty lifestyle,
and called out on his (and, by extension, the
franchise’s) toxic masculinity bullshit.
There’s also a fair amount of pointed ‘too
old for this shit’ material — there are jokes about
dyeing Smith’s goatee, about Lawrence needing
glasses and, at one point, Mike and Marcus take
to the streets in a motorcycle/sidebar combo that
basically makes this the most expensive episode
of Last Of The Summer Wine ever.
Of course, much of the pontifi cating about
trying to be good men, not bad boys, is jettisoned
for the obligatory gun-toting, bullet-spaffi ng
climax. But even if it has its cake and eats it, too,
it’s refreshing to see a movie like this stop to think
about the calories. And, in another interesting
move, these action scenes are surprisingly
easy to follow, with Adil and Billal (that’s how
they’re billed; fi rst names only, bad boys for life)
jettisoning Bay’s choppy quick edits in favour
of longer beats and clear, spatial geography.
Frankly, you can tell what’s going on. Perhaps
that’s a deliberate move to refl ect the advanced
years of its protagonists, but it’s a blessed relief.
With Smith carrying the movie, it means
Lawrence, freed from any desire to look cool
getting out of a car in slo-mo, gets to have a grand
old time as the tension-defl ating comic relief.
It’s still early in 2020, but one late-in-the-movie
line promises to be one of the year’s best. Sadly,
there’s little room for the new faces — including
Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig and Paola
Núñez as supercops who fi nd themselves butting
heads, at least at fi rst, with Lowrey and Burnett
— to make much of an impact. Still, this is clearly
a reinvigorated franchise with one eye on the
future, so some of them might get a chance down
the line. Maybe next time Smith and Lawrence
can careen downhill in a bathtub. CHRIS HEWITTVERDICT Not so much bad Bad Boys, more
good Bad Boys. And not so-bad-it’s-good
Bad Boys either. Instead, this is comfortably
the best entry in the series to date. Which
isn’t bad.BAD BOYS FOR LIFE
DIRECTORS Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah
CAST Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe
Pantoliano, Paola Núñez, Vanessa Hudgens,
Alexander Ludwig, Kate del CastilloPLOT With his partner Marcus Burnett (Lawrence)
on the verge of retiring, Mike Lowrey (Smith) is
being targeted for death by a vicious Mexican
druglord (del Castillo) and her son. Will the
bad boys of the Miami PD be able to team up
one last time?OUT NOW
★★★★ CERT 15 / 124 MINSNot so young guns, but
still the best of bad boys.[FILM]