General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024 film)

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is a 2024 American action comedy directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the fourth film in the Bad Boys series that began in 1995. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence return as Miami detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett, who set out to clear the name of their late captain, Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano), after he is posthumously framed as an informant for a Mexican drug cartel, and end up on the run themselves.¹^•² Columbia Pictures released the film in the United States on June 7, 2024.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	June 7, 2024 (United States), Columbia Pictures; premieres in Dubai (May 22), Berlin (May 27), and Los Angeles (May 30)¹^•³
Directors / writers	Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah; screenplay by Chris Bremner and Will Beall, based on characters created by George Gallo¹^•²⁰
Running time / rating	115 minutes; rated R for strong violence, language throughout, and some sexual references⁴
Budget	About $100 million⁵
Box office	$56,527,324 opening weekend; $193,573,217 domestic; $400,526,237 worldwide⁶
Critical reception	Metascore 54 (mixed or average) from 50 critic reviews; user score 6.1 from 220 ratings¹
Audience response	A- CinemaScore; 64% on Rotten Tomatoes at opening; Black moviegoers were 44% of ticket buyers⁵

Spoilers

Plot

The film opens with Mike's wedding to Christine (Melanie Liburd), a physical therapist, and with Marcus suffering a serious heart attack at the reception, dying momentarily and meeting the late Captain Howard in a dreamlike afterlife sequence.⁷^•⁸ After Marcus recovers, he wakes with a new zest for life and a feeling of invincibility.²

The central plot concerns the reputation of Captain Conrad Howard, who after his death is framed as an informant for a Mexican drug cartel as a way to cloak deeper corruption. Mike and Marcus set out to clear his name.² The villain is James McGrath (Eric Dane), a former Army Ranger and DEA agent who, working with a cartel to launder money, transfers millions into an account owned by the late captain, leading the Miami Police Department to believe Howard was the source of a corruption scandal.⁹ The search reunites Mike with his incarcerated son Armando (Jacob Scipio), introduced in the previous film, the only person alive who knows the face of the turncoat mercenary. The three end up on the run, sheltering and fighting in locations including a neon-art-filled warehouse, a Chinook helicopter, and an abandoned amusement park where alligators remain the main attraction.⁹

Cast and production

The cast is led by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, with Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Paola Nuñez, Eric Dane, Ioan Gruffudd, Jacob Scipio, Melanie Liburd, and Tasha Smith, plus Tiffany Haddish and Joe Pantoliano.¹⁰ Jerry Bruckheimer returned as producer alongside Will Smith, Chad Oman, and Doug Belgrad.¹⁰

Directors. Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Belgian filmmaking team credited as Adil & Bilall, also directed the previous entry, 2020's Bad Boys for Life, taking over the franchise from Michael Bay, who directed the first two films and appears in a cameo here.¹¹^•² The film was in development in 2022 when Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards; production was temporarily put on hold before going forward.² The directors had earlier seen their DC film Batgirl shelved by Warner Bros. for a tax write-down, a context several critics noted when assessing their return to a major franchise.¹²

Visual style. The film uses drone and security-camera perspectives, including action seen from the viewpoint of a gun and a military drone, and closes with an extended sequence styled after a first-person shooter video game.¹²^•¹³ Cinematographer Robrecht Heyvaert shot the film; the directors wanted as much practical action as possible, augmented with visual effects under production VFX supervisor Kris Sundberg. The most challenging VFX work was the Chinook helicopter sequence, in which a practical Huey filmed as reference could only reach about 1,500 feet while the CG Chinook needed to start around 6,000 feet for the plummeting action to work.¹⁴ Editors Dan Lebental and Asaf Eisenberg described the directors' mandate as breakneck pacing, alternating action and comedy in short intervals, and cited a much-lauded shootout set to Barry White as a signature set piece.⁹

Reception

Critical response was mixed. The film scored 54 on Metacritic, labeled mixed or average, from 50 critic reviews: 34% positive, 58% mixed, and 8% negative.¹ Positive reviews praised the action direction and the leads' chemistry. IGN's Eric Goldman called the action direction from Adil & Bilall thrilling and inventive; the New York Times's Robert Daniels wrote that the franchise had rarely felt so assured and knowingly funny; the Austin Chronicle described it as "Michael Bay for the John Wick generation."¹⁵ Detractors found the plotting thin: the Los Angeles Times's Katie Walsh called it a flimsy tapestry of lore without real interest in character, and the Chicago Sun-Times's Richard Roeper called the film a loud misfire despite the leads' intact chemistry.⁴^•⁷

Audiences responded more warmly. The film earned an A- CinemaScore, and AP reported 64% on Rotten Tomatoes at opening. Black moviegoers accounted for 44% of ticket buyers, the largest demographic, and Latinos 26%; the studio said 48% of the audience was under 35.⁵^•¹⁶ Several reviews read the film as a referendum on Will Smith's standing after the 2022 Oscars incident, his first major theatrical release since then, with AP noting that Lawrence's comic energy drives the film and that one notable scene has Marcus slapping Mike and calling him a "bad boy."¹¹^•⁵

Box office

The film opened at number one in North America with an estimated $56 million, a needed boost for a weak early summer season in which domestic ticket sales were down 24% from the same period the year before.⁵^•¹⁷ It added $48.6 million internationally in its first weekend, including a franchise-record Latin America opening of about $10.0 million.⁵ It did not match the $62.5 million opening of Bad Boys for Life in January 2020, which remains the franchise record.⁵

Final totals were $193,573,217 domestically and $400,526,237 worldwide against a $100 million production budget, ranking second in the franchise behind Bad Boys for Life's $206.3 million domestic and $424.5 million worldwide.⁶^•¹⁸ By late July 2024 the international tally had reached $203.5 million.¹⁹

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026