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(Armageddon, Bad Boys I & II, The Island, Pearl Harbour, The Rock, Transformers 1-3)
Producers:
Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson
Screenplay:
Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland and Doug Richardson
Music:
Mark Mancina
Cast :
Mike Lowery: Will Smith
Marcus Burnett: Martin Lawrence
Julie Mott: Téa Leoni
Captain Howard: Joe Pantoliano
Fouchet: Tchéky Karyo
Max Logan: Karen Alexander
Lois Fields: Heather Davis
Alison Sinclair: Marg Helgenberger
Francine: Anna Levine
Eddie Dominguez: Emmanuel Xuereb
Detective Sanchez: Nestor Serrano
Detective Ruiz: Julio Oscar Mechoso
Chet the Doorman: Saverio Guerra
Jojo: Michael Imperioli
Bad Boys is a 15-year-old action film and one that I've always meant to see, despite having a DVD, widescreen video and even the laserdisc, but now it's out on Blu-ray and it's time for a viewing.
As the film gets going, the baddies of the piece have broken into a bank and stolen back every last packet of the $100m'
worth of heroin recovered by Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) some time
earlier. In a bid to track them down, Mike asks hooker Max (Karen Alexander) to look out for any new guys in town
looking to waste a lot of money in the hope they're the baddies they're after, and when one such potential comes up she
takes non-hooker friend Julie (Téa Leoni) along on the proviso that the chances of the customers actually managing
to get it up are minimal so she won't be in danger. Alas, after a violent altercation, Julie has to get out of there
and into police custody. There's a drug deal about to go down for what's been stolen and she needs to stay out of the
limelight until then.
This film could really be cut down to an hour because the interplay between Smith and Lawrence tends to ramble on far
too long and there's a very tedious storyline about how Marcus isn't getting any sex from his wife. It's a shame as I
was looking forward to a wonderful action movie from Michael Bay like he delivered in Armageddon and The Rock
but this was just a bog-standard buddy cop movie with a handful of reasonable action sequences.
It's interesting that Martin Lawrence's name comes first on the bill but these days Will Smith is in everything as well
as releasing albums, while Lawrence is making hardly any movies at all. Other than that, one oddity is a nightclub scene
where the men's room can clearly be seen through an aquarium. I know the scene is done for comic effect, but that just
wouldn't happen in any public place!
The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and is highly-detailed with no problems.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in DTS-HD MA 5.1, although I only had access to it in DTS 5.1, and is great for gunplay but there's not
as much of that as I expected and there's not a lot of surround sound elsewhere.
The extras are as follows:
Putting The Boom & Bang In Bad Boys" (23:54):
Standard fare of work-in-progress footage intercut with soundbites from key cast and crew members.
Music Videos:
3 of them, from 69 Boyz, Warren G, and Diana King's one-hit wonder "Shy Guy".
Trailers:
None for this film, oddly, but just one each for Legion, The Bounty Hunter, The Karate Kid and Not The Messiah:
He's A Very Naughty Boy.
Audio commentaries:
One from director Michael Bay
BD Live:
Connect your Blu-ray player to the internet and it sounds like you'll be able to get info the IMDB page for this film.
I've never got my player to go online properly before, so I'll just visit IMDB anyway.
Play the film with Movie IQ:
Another BD Live feature. This is online info for people who don't have a computer in the same room while watching
the film and a desperate need to answer a query right there and then.
The menu features scenes from the film mixed together its incidental music.
There are English subtitles plus French, German and Arabic.
Commentary is also available in English.
However, the film's chaptering is still bad with Sony's strict (judging by all their recent releases)
16-only policy. Come on, Sony, you're not paying by the chapter(!)
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Blu-ray: 
Bad Boys is a 15-year-old action film and one that I've always meant to see, despite having a DVD, widescreen video and even the laserdisc, but now it's out on Blu-ray and it's time for a viewing.
The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio and is highly-detailed with no problems.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
