Balfe has been known to yield impressive sequel interpretations of legacy action modes, and his efforts for Bad Boys for Life are commendable in some respects but lacking in others. While he truly embraces the Media Ventures foundation and reprises the primary two Mancina themes and underlying staccato styles, he misses the mark in other ways. One of the most attractive aspects of Mancina's score was how raw it sounded. It emulated the sharp edges of the two lead characters with both confidence and pizazz on what appropriately came across like the product of a shoestring budget. By comparison, Balfe's production is a far more refined version of that same general approach, but that gentrification of the atmosphere loses the charm of the music's origins. The Mancina and Glennie-Smith music for Bad Boys offered a balance of brazen guitar and string action, reggae coolness, and surprisingly touching interludes for conversational scenes. Balfe unfortunately fails to adapt the latter two elements adequately into his work, the Miami atmosphere mostly drained from the soundscape. The steel drums and electric guitar are highly restrained in the mix here. For a film with so much weighty interpersonal interaction, it's odd to hear the abandonment of the solo guitar and keyboarded passages of tonal beauty as well. In their place, Balfe beefs up both the action element and offers an almost too melodramatic new theme for the familial pursuit at the heart of this story. On the upside, the action is anchored by Mancina's main theme, a pair of six-note phrases that Balfe liberally adapts into a myriad of circumstances here. It's great to hear this theme in full force again, even if some of its immature allure from 1995 has been replaced by a highly refined version of the same thing. You do get hints of the original recording's character in the form of the grunting exhales and descending electric bass motif that often accompanies the main theme. That secondary, descending motif had a much larger role in defining the environment of the lead detectives in the original score, so hearing it relegated to background duties under the main theme in Bad Boys for Life is something of a disappointment.

For most listeners, Balfe's significant arrangements of the primary theme will easily suffice to buoy this score, especially in the liberal application in diverse modes. In a cue like "It's Good Shit Lieutenant," listeners will have to decide if they can appreciate the update of the theme so that it has the booming low brass accompaniment of Zimmer 2010's fame and fantasy-like choir mixed with a touch of manipulation over the top. The new theme of the score is tied to that choral presence, representing the admittedly scary but not so overwhelming concept of the family pursuing Lowrey. Balfe overplays his hand here, the theme for these quasi-villains summarized with suspense in "Take Back What's Ours" and "The Truth" and eventually blossoming into overblown melodrama by "One Last Time." These passages completely lose the Mancina touch and would be far more comfortable in Klaus Badelt's Catwoman score. At times, Balfe understandably boils this idea down to one of lament, emulating, like so many others, Howard Shore's death motif from The Lord of the Rings at 1:49 into "Prayer," 2:52 into "The Truth," 2:32 into "We Ride Together, We Die Together," and the opening of "Promise to God." Some of the straight action material resembles holdovers from Balfe's venture into the Terminator universe, as in some of the slappy, manipulated portions of "Ambulance Heist." It's important to remember the upside with this score, though, and it comes in roaring portions that best capture the Mancina spirit with the main theme. The "We Ride Together, We Die Together" end credits arrangement combines the unused pair of "Bad Boys for Life" and "What Else You Got?" (complete with exotic woodwind effects for the Latin American element) with the lament theme to best summarize the score. For some listeners, the beefy substance of the performances of these cues will thrill; others will miss Mancina's more playful percussion especially. Overall, Bad Boys for Life is a more mature version of the original inspiration, a mixed bag of impressive reverence and unnecessary bloating of ambience. Balfe shows respect to the vintage Media Ventures sound, and that alone merits praise. The score album clocks in under 40 minutes and its presentation is totally out of film order. Expect to be pleasantly surprised by the loyalty to Mancina's main theme, but don't assume the rendering will appeal all the same.  ***   @Amazon.com: CD or Download