Just hearing that someone has to pretend to like their own movies doesn’t exactly instill a lot of confidence in the movie itself if a person hasn’t seen it yet, does it? Will Smith is at least honest when it comes to some of his flops since he’s gone ahead and stated that people will love a movie he’s made when in truth he didn’t even like it. After all that’s how to get people interested and hype up the movie so people will actually go. But it’s a little bit dishonest even if it’s for a good enough reason in the eyes of so many. But when it comes to some sequels it’s kind of hard to think that he had to really pump himself up to tell people that they were going to like it when he knew different. There are some movies that can easily be pegged as less than his best, and some that people would argue about with a passion since some folks liked them and others could take or leave them. After Earth, The Legend of Bagger Vance, I Am Legend, Gemini Man, Men in Black II, Men in Black III, those are just a few that might get people talking but really and truly were not the best that Smith has ever done since he’s been a blockbuster star but has definitely put up some less than stellar movies just like anyone. As he’s been heard to say, per John Tuttle of We Got This Covered:
“I had fumbled a couple of my last sequels. You know, I wasn’t happy with the Men in Black sequel. It’s fantastic. Y’all gonna love it. Because I say that a lot,” Smith joked. “I’m going to keep it real: sometimes I say ‘y’all are gonna love it,’ and y’all not gonna love it. You know, ’cause sometimes I’ve seen it, and I know y’all not gonna love it, but it’s an expensive movie. But this time…it is so good.”
The movie he’s been trying to pump up the crowds over this time is of course Bad Boys for Life, which is essentially a movie about two very well-known cops that are getting older but somehow are still out on the streets making a difference and helping Michael Bay to get his explosion and sexualized content fix on yet again. 17 years it took for this sequel and it shows since a lot of the one-liners and jokes are about as standard issue as they’ve been since the second movie while the action is at least pulse-pounding and thrilling as any Bay movie can be, even if it’s getting a bit predictable at this point. Dustin Chase of The Daily News has more to say about this.
One reason why we’re not hearing a lot of flak towards the movie at this point is that it’s definitely targeting those that can feel nostalgic about the second movie and those that likely had to go back and watch the first two movies to get a baseline for this sequel since they were too young to really understand the first two installments. Relying so heavily on both nostalgia and a new generation of fans is something that’s making many sequels, reboots, and remakes work since the upcoming generation doesn’t know any better than a lot of us did when we thought we were watching original ideas unfold on the screen in our youth. It’s definitely fair to assume that Smith knows this and is having to pump himself and those around him up to convince them all that what they’re doing is great and that it no way are previous movies going to taint anyone’s enjoyment of this current project. For some the desire to see this movie as an individualized flick that connects to the first two but still does it’s own thing is bound to be why it will do well. But if you look past all that then you get a movie that’s been done before in a number of ways and is different this time only because it’s featuring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as detectives that people have come to know and care about through the past two movies. In short, nostalgia and its effects on the current time period are used in heavy doses in order to push something that might otherwise be just another action movie featuring two men that are just about past the last part of their prime and are slipping slowly past middle age. Steve Dinneen of City A.M. has more to say on this particular subject.
The only real downside of all this is that there’s already a Bad Boys 4 in the works apparently since the third one obviously wasn’t enough to wrap things up and give that ‘one last ride’ line a final rest that a lot of people figured was coming. One has to wonder just how much Smith is going to hype up the fourth installment and how much he’ll have to convince himself that it’s ‘real good’.
