Tag: Joe Pantoliano

Bad Boys bad boys, Michael gonna Bay, Michael gonna Bay and explode on you.

As of last week, I had not seen either of the Bad Boys movies. I did make sure to check out the first two before this third one quite a few years later. I figured the plot would be relevant [Editor’s Note: It wasn’t] to previous movies and didn’t want to be lost. And honestly, neither were my jam at all. I can’t remember much about the first film, and only a few scenes from the sequel stand out. It was definitely a chore I had to put up with.

And let’s talk about this title? Bad Boys For Life. I guess they don’t have high expectations for future films, letting go of that obvious for for the fourth film there.

And yes, I know Michael Bay didn’t direct this one. Let me have my fun.

Lawrence is mostly just excited to have work at this point. 

Set all the real life years after the other movies, we have our heroes Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) getting older and getting into slightly less trouble. Mike still feels he is king of the world and untouchable. Marcus is slowing down, ready to retire, and over a lot of this stuff. Hell, he is a grandfather now. He wants to make sure he can see his grandson grow up and now get shot at some point in the future.

At the same time, some Hispanic lady (Kate del Castillo) broke out of prison in Mexico, thanks to her son (Jacob Scipio), and they seem to have plans about getting their family back on top. Finding some lost money, getting the literal gang back together. All of that. And she wants revenge, for everyone who hurt the family, including a Mike Lowrey many years ago.

Oh yeah, they have history. But you don’t know about it, since it took place before even the first movie, because why not.

Anyways, not sure what else to talk about. Scary threat and scary bad people, and maybe some people will die.

Also starring Alexander Ludwig, Vanessa Hudgens, Joe Pantoliano, Paola Nuñez, Charles Melton, and DJ Khaled.

Oh yeah, everyone is getting too old for this shit. 

Bad Boys for Life could have been a better film. The ideas were there. Some of the characters were there. But it did not ever reach the potential and by the end, we were left with the same damn shit.

First I want to talk about Martin Lawrence, featuring a fatter head because he has been a lot more out of the spotlight. Honestly, it fits his character. And I loved his character in the first half of the movie. A grandson changed his life. He had new priorities. He prayed and stick to his prayers. It was actually a delight to see. And uhh, eventually, it was all just thrown away and hey, action movie, shoot gun, bang bang bang killing people. Okay.

Second note. In the middle of the movie we get a big speech from a character and it is meant to be this big moment. A change of heart speech. And then a really bad thing happens at that moment. Mike realizes at that point that everyone else was right, and that he was wrong. He was doing the bad stuff, he shouldn’t be involved, he needs to let others handle the current issue at hand. Hell, Marcus was right and Mike was wrong. They establish it, we all agree with it.

AND THEN RIGHT AFTER THEY GO BACK TO DOING THE BAD THING THEY ALL JUST AGREED SHOULDN’T BE DONE.

What in the hell? I feel like I was taking crazy pills.

This is a film that has some good laughs and scenes, and has good ideas, that get tossed aside on a whim to give us just another buddy cop action film. It didn’t stick the landing in terms of character growth at all, especially with the actual ending, which became a standard big kill fest with expendable bad guys, fire, and some underwhelming CGI.

Oh yeah, and there is no need to watch either previous movie. Despite having a villain from the past, it certainly isn’t one in the first two movies. Despite having a character that was in a relationship with Mike in the past, it is another thing that happened off screen. Completely lazy writing at points for these minor details, and, you know, the main plot of the dang film.

I am just so upset that it had potential and started off way better than expected.

The Identical actually came to theaters first week of September, and, from what I can remember, it was the only thing to come out that whole week. Yet I didn’t see it til its DVD Release.

Why? Well. It didn’t have any pre-screenings at all, around the country. Popular movies have pre-screenings. Movies that end up sucking have pre-screenings. But the only thing coming out that week didn’t even think it warranted them? That is a big warning sign if anything. Not letting anyone see the movie before it releases. That means they are afraid of the critics voice or popular opinion fucking up their sales.

That’s really all I knew going into The Identical, outside of its story involving a musician.

And clones. Clearly this involves clones, right?

Back in the 1930s there was something going on called The Dust Bowl. Big storms, droughts, fucked up a lot of farms. Was after the Great Depression too, so that wasn’t a good thing for our economy. As for two unlucky folks (Amanda Crew, Brian Geraghty), they found themselves poor and struggling to get by. And with twins!

So after a long discussion, they decided to instead give away one of the kids to a traveling preacher (Ray Liotta) and his wife (Ashley Judd) as they were unable to have kids on their own.

Flash foward some years, Ryan Wade (Blake Rayne) wants to sing and play music, while his dad wants him to be a Preacher, obviously. He then basically invents rock ‘n roll somehow, with a friend of his on drums (Seth Green). But he doesn’t get famous from it. His dad sends him to the army, and then preacher school before he finally sets off on his own to do what he wants to do: automobile mechanics. Nope. He can’t be a star, too hard for him.

But not too hard for Drexel Hemsley, his twin, who became super famous and invented rock ‘n roll, or something. Everyone says they look alike. But that can’t be. Oh well, Ryan looks up to him and hopes he can meet him some day. Also with Joe Pantoliano as a mechanic shop owner and Erin Cottrell as the girlfriend/narrator.

This is the first time in his life Liotta did not play a gangster.

I am so happy that I did not shell out money for a movie ticket for this garbage. It had so many ugh moments, on almost every level, that made this movie bad.

Starting with my already made joke, Ray Liotta as a preacher? What? Every scene set in the 1930s was done in black and white. That way you knew it was the past, versus the “present” of the 1940s and 1950s. Tacky and terrible.

It is such an awkward story (/book), because it is clearly just trying to make a strange fan fiction Elvis movie. The main actor isn’t an actor at all, but someone who won an Elvis lookalike contest in the 1990s and has made a career out of it. So yeah, that guy is the guy they have to play these two people who are notElvisbutElvis.

Not only is the plot itself terrible, but every one of the characters is two-dimensional and lame for no good reason. SPOILERS, but he doesn’t find out he is a twin until his “dad” is about to die. Great. His real mom and twin are already dead now too, so all he has left is a father who got rid of him. Yay?

It was so slowly moving, it became infuriating at times at how dense and pointless the whole film felt.