Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Will Smith and Doug Belgrad   Directors: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah   Screenplay: Chris Bremner, Peter Craig and Joe Carnahan   Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Paola Núñez, Jacob Scipio, Kate Del Castillo, Nicky Jam, DJ Khaled, Theresa Randle and Bianca Bethune   Distributor: Sony Entertainment/Columbia Pictures

Grade:  C-

The sequel to the original 1995 “Bad Boys” was long in coming: “Bad Boys II” didn’t show up until 2003 (and it was so true to the titular adjective, one wished it never had).  It’s taken nearly seventeen years for a third installment, and the time was not well spent: “Bad Boys For Life” is endlessly awful, a throwback that should have been thrown away.

The premise is that long-time partners Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are still cruising the streets of Miami in their muscle car, sending their short-tempered captain (Joe Pantoliano) into paroxysms with their rule-breaking ways.  (If the setup reminds you of innumerable buddy movies of the seventies and eighties, let alone tons of TV series from the time, your memory is working fine.)

But Marcus, a first-time grandpa, wants to retire and help raise the new baby, while Mike has no desire to change his routine, intent on continuing his street-wise swaggering indefinitely.  Marcus does exit the force, but, as the saying goes, he’s forced reluctantly back into the game when Mike is targeted by a would-be assassin, and makes a recovery (one depicted as remarkably quick and easy) from what certainly seems should have been a fatal assault.

The question is who’s responsible, and why.  The answer has been telegraphed from the very start, when we’re shown Isabel (Kate del Castillo), the bloodthirsty widow of a Mexican drug lord, escaping from prison in an extraordinarily nasty scene, and encouraging her son Armando (Jacob Scipio) to take vengeance on Lowrey not just by attacking him, but making him suffer by first killing everybody involved in her late husband’s downfall. 

That leads to a string of big set-pieces, including a frantic chase involving cars, motorcycles and helicopters, and a series of bloody killings (including one of a major character) before Mike and Marcus travel to Mexico to take on the dastardly duo in a finale that turns into a literal conflagration, with Mike coming to terms with his past and Marcus kvetching all the way.  It closes, however, with a big revelation about family secrets that might just remind you of that in the last of Smith’s other recent action extravaganza, “Gemini Man” (if you were unlucky enough to see that Ang Lee bomb). 

Along the way the duo pick up a team of Miami cohorts, a special ops team called AMMO headed by Rita (Paola Núñez), who has a past with Lowrey (and she’s not the only one), and including svelte sharpshooter Kelly (Vanessa Hudgens), beefy computer wizard Dorn (Alexander Ludwig) and cocky know-it-all Rafe (Charles Melton).  They all make it south of the border for the finale, too.    

The directing duties of “Bad Boys for Life” have passed from Michael Bay (who must make do with a cameo here) to the Moroccan-born Belgian duo of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, billed as Adil and Bilall, but the basic approach remains the same.  They offer up tons of action, shot by Robrecht Heyvaert and edited by Dan Lebental and Peter McNulty in the hyperkinetic style that’s obligatory nowadays and accompanied by an overbearing score from Lorne Balfe.

But they also leave plenty of room for banter between the two stars, which is meant to be explosively funny but comes off as pretty lame, with Lawrence in particular struggling to wring laughs out of lines that wouldn’t even merit inclusion in a stand-up routine (which is what he often seems to be attempting); he also has to try to sell multiple instances of his trying to stifle throwing up at the sight of blood, which seems an odd reaction from a guy who must have seen beaucoup violence during decades on the streets.  (A conversation between the two on their plane ride to Mexico, which sends their fellow passengers into fright at the mention of guns and mayhem, is cringe-inducing.)  Presumably all the gabbing is intended to humanize the characters, but there’s entirely too much of it, especially in the first hour (which frankly tends to crawl along) since it’s mostly composed of stock back-and-forth repartee. 

Perhaps one has to give Smith and Lawrence credit for trying to pull off this old-fashioned blarney  at all, but the fact of the matter is that their reunion doesn’t engender as much affection as impatience, and when the suggestion of a sequel comes at the close, it seems more like a threat.  Enough, already.

As for Adil and Bilall, they’re reportedly also attached to direct another installment of the old “Beverly Hills Cop” franchise with Eddie Murphy.  The last movie in that series came out in 1994, which means that when the new one appears, more than a quarter-century will have elapsed.  Can you smell the mothballs?

Producers: Jason Blum, Ben Cosgrove and Adam Hendricks   Director: Sophia Takal   Screenplay: Sophia Takal and April Wolfe   Cast: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue, Brittany O’Grady, Caleb Eberhardt. Cary Elwes, Simon Mead, Ryan McIntyre, Lucy Currey and Madeleine Adams  Distributor: Universal Pictures

Grade:  C-

The second remake of Bob Clark’s 1974 proto-slasher movie (Glen Morgan’s 2006 version is generally dismissed as a complete bomb) resuscitates the plot about a bunch of sorority sisters imperiled by a mad killer at holiday time.  But Sophia Takal and April Wolfe aren’t content to offer up just another exercise in dumb splatter.  They’ve added a spin intended to resonate with today’s Me Too attitudes about female empowerment and toxic masculinity.  The idea of a “Black Christmas” as sharp and socially conscious as “Get Out” is a great one.  Too bad they’ve flubbed it. 

The heroine, though not at all your conventional last girl standing, is Riley Stone (Imogen Poots), who’s among the “orphans” at the Mu Kappa Epsilon sorority at Hawthorne College—the sisters who will be remaining during winter break, others being her pals Kris (Aleyse Shannon), Marty (Lily Donoghue) and Jesse (Brittany O’Grady), along with Riley’s “little sister” Helena (Madeleine Adams).  Riley is still traumatized after being sexually assaulted by Brian (Ryan McIntyre), the former president of the Delta Kappa Omicron fraternity (pronounce it Dick-O—Delta Kappa Sigma would have been even more appropriate), who was forced to leave campus after the accusation though few other than her friends believed Riley’s account. 

Kris, meanwhile, is the activist of the bunch.  She’s already succeeded in getting a statue of the college’s founder Caleb Hawthorne—a slave-owning misogynist—removed from campus, and has now embarked on a campaign to get smarmy Lit Professor Gelson (Cary Elwes) fired, partly because his syllabus proudly includes works by only dead white males.  One senses, of course, that his bigotry includes lots of ethnic groups too.

Things are not well at Hawthorne.  One girl (Lucy Currey) has already been murdered by a robed and hooded figure while walking home—and after receiving threatening text messages from Caleb Hawthorne.  Now, after performing a song-and-dance routine at a Delta Kappa Omicron talent show explicitly accusing the frat of embodying a rape culture, Riley, Kris, Marty and Jesse are threatened at the sorority house by not one but three robed and hooded figures, and after deaths and scuffles the survivors identify the attackers as fraternity pledges.

From this point the plot devolves into nonsense about black magic and brainwashing as Takal and Wolfe try to tie everything up in a screed against men going to any lengths to restore women to a properly subservient role and punish those who refuse to comply with this “natural” order.  The targeted women don’t take it lying down, of course; despite some waffling, they not only stand their ground but take the fight to their oppressors, willing to literally burn down the house of patriarchal oppression. 

While one might admire the ambition of this new “Black Christmas,” the premise is unfortunately let down by the execution.  What’s needed is a darkly comic tone, but except for a few moments, the script lacks the satirical edge that’s needed.  That’s obvious in the depiction of most of the male characters.  With a couple of exceptions—Marty’s boyfriend Nate (Simon Mead) and sweet DJ Landon (Caleb Eberhardt), who are at least half-woke—the guys are just stereotypes of sneering uber-masculinity.  As for women who decide to submit to them, they find out the hard way that they’ve made the wrong choice.

But even worse is the depiction of the non-submissive women.  Simply put, they’re pretty dense, from Riley on down, and spend a good deal of their time simply running helplessly away from their tormentors and, when finally roused to fight back, don’t do very well.  Consider Riley—she’s repeatedly throttled and saved from being strangled to death by the intervention of a third party, and by the time of the big final confrontation she’s so slow to destroy the magical item that’s causing all the trouble that she’s betrayed, conked out and trussed up like a typical damsel-in-distress.  Takal and Wolfe want to depict the sisters as strong, self-confident and powerful, but at the same time defer to the conventions of the older “Black Christmas” movies (and the multitude of others with simpering female victims).  The result feels conflicted, coming across as only half-heartedly revisionist.

And as director Takal doesn’t stage the suspense sequences particularly well.  The best is certainly the opening prologue with Currey, with its incongruous closing image of a snow angel; later scenes of the girls being stalked are mostly limp and confused, despite some atmospheric work from production designer Mark Robins, cinematographer Mark Schwartzbard and editor Jeff Betancourt.  And the final confrontation back at the fraternity house is close to being a complete mess.  The young cast do their best with the material, Poots going beyond the pale in an effort to give Riley some depth.  But Elwes chews the scenery for all it’s worth as the creepy professor. 

One can appreciates what Takal, Wolfe and company were attempting in their new version of “Black Christmas.”  But the result doesn’t follow through on the promise; it’s neither scary nor clever enough to work as either horror movie or social satire.  That makes it doubly disappointing.

By the way, this might not be the greatest date movie.