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DVDfever.co.uk – Bad Boys Blu-ray reviewDom Robinson reviews
Sony Pictures Home EntertainmentBlu-ray: 
DVD:
- Cert:
- Running time: 119 minutes
- Cat no.: SBR36417
- Year: 1995
- Released: May 2010
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Picture: 1080p High Definition
- Sound: DTS 5.1 HD-MA, DTS 5.1
- Languages: English, French, German
- Subtitles: English, French, German, Arabic; plus English, French, German, Dutch commentary
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: BD50
- Price: £17.99 (Blu-ray); £5.00 (DVD)
- Extras: Director’s Commentary, Putting The Boom & Bang In Bad Boys, Music Videos, Trailers, BD-Live
Directors:
- Michael Bay
(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 timeearlier. In a bid to track them down, Mike asks hooker Max (Karen Alexander) to look out for any new guys in townlooking to waste a lot of money in the hope they’re the baddies they’re after, and when one such potential comes up shetakes non-hooker friend Julie (Téa Leoni) along on the proviso that the chances of the customers actually managingto get it up are minimal so she won’t be in danger. Alas, after a violent altercation, Julie has to get out of thereand into police custody. There’s a drug deal about to go down for what’s been stolen and she needs to stay out of thelimelight until then.
This film could really be cut down to an hour because the interplay between Smith and Lawrence tends to ramble on fartoo long and there’s a very tedious storyline about how Marcus isn’t getting any sex from his wife. It’s a shame as Iwas looking forward to a wonderful action movie from Michael Bay like he delivered in Armageddon and The Rockbut 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 wellas releasing albums, while Lawrence is making hardly any movies at all. Other than that, one oddity is a nightclub scenewhere the men’s room can clearly be seen through an aquarium. I know the scene is done for comic effect, but that justwouldn’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 notas 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 watchingthe 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(!)
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.