Not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good…

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is the fourth movie in the hit, ‘cop buddy’ Bad Boys franchise, and it screeches into UAE cinemas with guns blazing on June 6. It’s a careful study of 90s action-comedy lore, genuinely hilarious in places and asymmetrically stacked with unique-to-the-genre, riotous action sequences. It’s blockbuster cinema in its finest form, and we were lucky enough to catch up with its stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence ahead of the film’s red carpet premiere at the Coca-Cola Arena.

Book tickets: Now

May 21, 2024: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah attend a photo call for Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE at Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Photo by: Maged Helal

What’s On: Is there more for Mike and Marcus [their characters in Bad Boys] on the cards, can we expect another movie?

Martin Lawrence: You know, if the the fans just keep wanting more, and Big Willy’s up to it… This is my ride or die right here, so we’ll give ‘em more.

Will Smith: It’s such a new world with [sequels] now, you know, 30 years in between this and the first one, that’s more than a generation. So if it becomes something that parents and children start watching together, we’ll ride until the wheels fall off.

Martin Lawrence: And when the wheel falls off we’ll drag it.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. Photo by: Frank Masi

WO: This movie has a very 90s action-comedy feel to it, is this something you and the directors [Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah] deliberately focused on?

WS: I love what Adil and Bilall did with the look. They were trying to keep it Bad Boys. But you know, that first person shooter scene they did? So it’s really interesting. When you test a movie, you test in the four quadrants, men over 30 women over 30 men under 30 and women under 30. It was almost like a line in the sand. Everybody over 30 was like, “no” to the first person shooter. And everybody under 30 was like, yo, that was the coolest thing. So there are two different audiences there, people who were teenagers during the first two movies. And then there are people who weren’t born before the first two movies so, it’s interesting to see how people react to that. But it’s a it is a difficult balancing act. I think a Adil and Bilall did a did a great job with it.

ML: And they’re great directors. They come and work, they’re calm and they treat people with love and respect. They’re consistent and they’re very good at what they do.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in Columbia Pictures BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE. Photo by: Frank Masi

WO: After four movies and 30 years of being Bad Boys, how quickly do you guys slip back into character?

ML: You gotta get in shape for it.

WS: Yes, exactly. Once you find out you’re doing it, you gotta put the donuts down for a minute. The Funyuns, the Ding Dongs, you gotta put them all down and try to get back in that Bad Boys shape. It gets a little bit harder as you get older. I felt like that was another reason for the characters to be age appropriate so we could play some of those things that were really happening with our bodies. It’s not big preparation when we show up on the first day we’re in and it’s.

ML: He loves to rehearse. Yeah, he’ll have us rehearsing two, three, four times out of the week, just to make sure when we get on set that everybody’s prepared.

WS: Yeah. It’s it’s expensive to rehearse on set.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is out in cinemas across the UAE from June 6, you can book tickets: here

Images: Provided