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Review of Bad Boys: Ride or Die (Lorne Balfe)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... only if you desire a more industrial and abrasive version
of Lorne Balfe's music for the previous film in the franchise.
Avoid it... if you lament the loss of the attractively raw, reggae-laced style Mark Mancina brought to the concept originally, that personally subjugated even further this time.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Bad Boys: Ride or Die: (Lorne Balfe) Despite the
shockingly poor behavior of franchise star Will Smith at the 2022
Academy Awards, Jerry Bruckheimer was undaunted in pressing forward with
a fourth film in the Bad Boys franchise. The preceding film,
Bad Boys for Life, mopped up at the theatres just prior to the
pandemic of 2020, and these later entries tease the notion that its two
1990's era stars are too old for their usual crime-busting antics but
nevertheless thrust them into more such adventures. The corruption to be
uncovered in 2024's Bad Boys: Ride or Die lies within the two
detectives' own Miami department, and the script is essentially yet
another long chase to uncover cartel connections, weed out the bad guys
within, and, of course, shoot a whole hell of a lot of henchmen and
other undesirable, well-armed nasties. The tone of this movie also
includes a hacking component related to the investigation into the
corruption, but the core heart of the concept's appeal remains rooted in
flying bullets and exploding whatevers. Despite familiar plot elements,
these 2020's movies have lost the raw appeal of the 1990's origins for
the franchise, and nowhere is that change more prevalent than in the
underscores for the films. When Lorne Balfe took over the franchise's
music for Bad Boys for Life, there were still some vestiges of
the original music's character kept alive, and it helped that Nick
Glennie-Smith remained involved. But the tone of what he and Mark
Mancina produced for Bad Boys has been abandoned to an even
greater degree with Balfe's return for Bad Boys: Ride or Die. The
crew for this second Balfe score is mostly different, seven ghostwriters
mostly turning over from the four that had contributed to Bad Boys
for Life. This resulting shift not only forces the music even
further from its snazzier reggae roots but also causes issues of
coherency in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. More than its predecessor,
you get the impression that the various parts of this score never quite
become comfortable with each other, the entirely never gelling despite a
moderately successful narrative in some parts. Generally, whereas Balfe
had taken Mancina's original franchise sound melodramatic in Bad Boys
for Life, he strives for a more industrial and electro-technic
personality in Bad Boys: Ride or Die, likely for the digital
elements of the story.
The loss of the reggae tone remains a massive problem, steel drums diminished even further in the mix here to just a couple of cameo appearances, and muted ones at that. Instead, listeners receive increasingly pounding industrial percussion akin to Terminator Genisys in "Bridge Barrage" and "Reggie in Action" while synthetic groaning and dissonance really hurts this score early in "Hacking Howard" and late in "Columbian Manicure." It's a far more abrasive work overall given that most of the familial drama built into the previous entry is abandoned here outside of the uncharacteristically smooth death sequence in "Basement of the Ocean." The ensemble consists of brass and strings behind the usual electric bass, guitars, and tons of synthesizers. Vocals, while present in a few places, have little impact aside from one pair of cool insertions late in the score. The "Bad Boys" song lyrics are incorporated into the background of "Reggie in Action" nicely, both in the middle and end of the cue on either side of Balfe's adversity theme. Thematically, Balfe retains the Mancina and Glennie-Smith core identities from Bad Boys and continue to develop them into new incarnations. Mostly, however, this work is defined by Balfe's adversity theme from Bad Boys for Life, shifting from a villain identity to become the overarching narrative tool of the franchise for the aging detectives' own perseverance. The main franchise theme's secondary bass riff is even more marginalized than in the previous score, relying mostly on the primary six-note call and answer phrasing that opens and closes "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" sans most of the originating original steel drum personality but managing once again to work in one of the trademark male grunts of the theme and arguably recorded better. The theme is pressed into action and suspense duty thereafter, opening "Sugar Rush Shootout" briefly before devolving into wretched, grating action mode. (This cue is truly awful for most of its running time.) Interestingly, the theme is adapted for the death scene in an elongated formation to serve the dreamy choral atmosphere of "Basement of the Ocean." From there, however, it's mostly unremarkable, shifting to soft suspense early in "Bridge Barrage" and an ominous major phrase later. The bass riff is given its own moment of sneakiness late in "Prison Yard Attack," but don't expect to hear it much elsewhere. Slight references for the six-note phrases exist throughout the second half of "Hacking Howard" in suspense, are badly and aggressively manipulated electronically in "Flammable Fluid," and inform the grungy rhythms in "Finding McGrath." The main Mancina theme is diminished even further in the final moments of the score for Bad Boys: Ride or Die. A guitar teases it early in "Taking Heavies," strings and brass later engaging it in action mode, and the idea's chords help guide the ambient suspense early in "Standoff." But that's it. The returning adversity theme that Balfe had freshly applied to the villains in the previous movie is the most frequent contributor here, dominating the middle of "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" on strings and brass over the descending Mancina riff. It's still dripping with overblown Balfe melodrama, but it's fuller and better set to percussion in this arrangement. The idea stews at the outset of "Prison Yard Attack" before exploding into obnoxious synthetic blurting in the middle of the cue. It receives low string allusions in "Hacking Howard" and opens "Framing the Boys" with some moderate fright before the cue disintegrates into noise, the motif reaching out of the muck late. The adversity theme combines synthetics and orchestra for a large crescendo late in "Reggie in Action," emerges from the synthetic ruckus in the middle of "Taking Heavies," opens "No More Prayers" on threatening brass (turning to lament later before an action burst), and builds with momentum after two minutes in "Standoff," where it guides the post-climax meandering via a generic drama crescendo. Balfe's lamentation theme from the prior score doesn't explicitly return, but it is seemingly adapted into something different on organ-like tones late in "Basement of the Ocean." The only new material in Bad Boys: Ride or Die exists for its own villains, but this theme meanders anonymously around key with minimal propulsion and eerie sound effects. Its quiet stomping on strings is joined by the theme's true calling card, somewhat humorous seagull effects, in "Fear is a Tool." The villain theme makes a quick cameo in the middle of "Prison Yard Attack" while the seagulls return in "Hacking Howard" and "Framing the Boys." Bass carries the theme in the latter half of "Finding McGrath" among the seagulls, and it becomes a bit ponderous early in "Columbian Manicure" with a few more bird calls before exploding later on terrible synths. The idea earns a bit steadier orchestral posture at the start of "Taking Heavies" with the same seagulls and overlaps the adversity theme well throughout the cue's middle. Ultimately, however, the score for Bad Boys: Ride or Die loses both the charm of its original inspiration and the dramatic appeal of Balfe's stance for the preceding film. This entry simply degenerates too often into cheap, stock suspense and action for the genre, parroting tired synthetic techniques and yielding an unsatisfying 48-minute score-only album that offers little new of interest aside from the better-recorded opening suite. **
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 47:40
NOTES & QUOTES:
There exists no official packaging for this album.
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