What the IP Era Got Wrong (And How ‘Bad Boys for Life’ Got It Right) ~ Digital Library

We live in the IP Era. Forget remake culture, reboot culture, and cinematic universe culture. Not only are they all the same but also only symptoms of the media industry’s fixation on maximizing intellectual property.

When handled with precision and care, IP can build a multi-media empire akin to Star Wars or the MCU. When mishandled, well, just take a look at some of the most notable box office failures of the last few years. Most are IP-driven remakes, reboots, and sequels that fail to recapture the glory of their source texts. So you’ll forgive me if I personally expected the same of Bad Boys for Life.

Then, a funny and wholly unexpected thing happened: the movie ended up being pretty good.

In order to get into what the film does well, we have to start with where similar projects have failed – and it all comes down to directorial vision. Take a look at some of the most notable (failed) attempts at revitalizing IP over the last few years: Men in Black: International. Pacific Rim. Robocop. Hellboy, just to name a few. These are all films that became successful in their original incarnations largely due to the strength of the directors attached.

The appeal of these directors can’t be understated, even if someone watching the film isn’t actively conscious of who made it. There’s an extent to which auteur theory is garbage as all movies are collaborative by nature but most directors, for better or worse, have a voice. Oftentimes, that voice is distinct enough that even if a moviegoer doesn’t have the vocabulary to articulate what it is, they know it when they see it. And when it’s gone, they notice.

Pacific Rim, Hellboy, and Guillermo Del Toro

We start with one of the most acclaimed populist filmmakers of the century, Guillermo Del Toro. As a director, he’s equal parts odd and sincere, with just about every movie he’s made somehow tying back to the fact that as a child he like, really identified with the Universal Monsters. He’s the rare director to take pre-existing IP and tie his personal ethos into his adaptation of it – twice, first in Blade II and then in Hellboy. That in and of itself is a testament to his strength of vision.

While he’s no slouch when it comes to composing visuals the way that someone like Michael Bay is (again, for better or worse – you know a Michael Bay shot when you see it), Del Toro’s strengths lie more in story and production design. There’s a tremendous attention to detail in props, creature design, set dressing, and costuming in his films. That care stems from his attachment to the stories he’s telling – they’re intimate even at their largest scale. The reason Hellboy, Hellboy II, and Pacific Rim work as well as they do is because of Del Toro’s creative vision and unbridled heart. Is it any wonder that both franchises failed to find the same success once he left?

Did Men in Black Need to Go International?

Barry Sonnenfeld may not be the first person you think of when you hear the word “auteur.” Still, there’s an undeniable Sonnenfeld to most of his work in the 90s – work which left an indelible mark on mainstream film of the era.

Sonnenfeld directed both of the live action Addams Family movies as well as the original Men in Black trilogy, the success of which cannot be understated. The original remains one of the most iconic movies of the decade and even if the sequels brought with them diminishing returns, they were box office juggernauts that propelled Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones even further into superstardom than they already were.

The appeal of Smith was integral to the original film’s success and today that appeal is a little bit harder to quantify (he’s still a star but putting him in a movie is no longer akin to printing money). Pair that with Tommy Lee Jones’ utter disinterest in returning to the franchise, and it would seem like last year was an ideal time to revamp the Men in Black. The studio paired F. Gary Gray, hot off the success of The Fate of the Furious, with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson (who were having A Moment thanks to Thor: Ragnarok). In theory, a hit…right?

Nope. Men in Black: International proved one of the most disappointing box office moments of 2019. Not only did it fail to make much beyond its budget at the box office, it was also widely regarded as the worst film in the franchise and utterly forgettable in every way.

There’s no sense of wonder to the way the film is shot and framed. Everything feels rote, nothing feels fantastic. That lack of visual splendor is a big part of why audiences were drawn to the originals, whether they realize it or not. Taking it away just leaves some vaguely charismatic actors to interact with tennis balls that will later be transformed into computer-generated aliens.

Bad Boys Forever

Which brings us to the somehow-delightful Bad Boys for Life, a movie that should not be good. It shouldn’t! It’s just a fact! This should be a bad movie. It’s a reboot of a long-dormant action franchise dropped in the middle of January with newcomer directors. The headlines should be writing themselves: Bad Boys? More Like Bad Movie.

Instead, what we’ve received is a movie that takes ample care in figuring out what made the originals work and even improving on the elements that haven’t aged well.

Original director Michael Bay is, like it or not, an auteur in every way. He has a storytelling style as distinct as his visuals, which when working in tandem have been termed “Bayhem.” And while Bay’s style is often functioning at its worst (see: the Transformers movies) it’s often a huge box office draw when done well.

The original Bad Boys movies were massive hits and Armageddon remains one of the more iconic blockbusters of the 90s. Without Bay in the director’s chair, the new Bad Boys movie would have to rely on the charisma of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence (which doesn’t have the allure it did twenty years ago) and name brand recognition.

The movie succeeds where others have failed by keeping Bay on as a producer and having him select his successor as director. He ended up choosing Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, a pair of Belgian directors who have studied Bay’s filmmaking style intimately.

They bring all of his visual splendor to the film while updating the elements that no longer work as well, in their place drawing from the new dominant action franchise of the moment (the Fast & Furious films). They’re permitted to bring a heart to the film that the originals never quite had without sacrificing all of the bombast that made them great to begin with. It’s the perfect marriage of homage and update, and it’s all supervised by Bay himself (who even has a pretty witty cameo in the film, one that’s framed in one of Bay’s signature circular shots).

IP filmmaking isn’t likely to go anywhere in the coming decade. It remains a mostly profitable enterprise and doesn’t read as risky to studios. If they want these movies to succeed though, the key lies in focusing not on iconography or rehashing old character beats, but on what the original directors brought to the table and how to best update it for a new generation.

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