Warning: Major spoilers for Bad Boys: Ride or Die below!
Summary
- Expendables 4 failed to showcase Jacob Scipio's talents, while Bad Boys: Ride or Die proved his leading man potential.
- The Expendables franchise's poor track record of wasting young stars like Glen Powell contrasts with Bad Boys' success in showcasing Scipio.
- Scipio's work as Armando in Bad Boys 4 should set the stage for the actor to front his own movies.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die underlines how poorly Expendables 4 used one of its young stars. The Expendables movie franchise was created by Sylvester Stallone, who designed the series to unite some of the genre's most iconic stars. Critically, the films were largely met with disdain, but the first two outings did very well on the strength of bringing together names like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Wesley Snipes and many more. After an effort to produce an all-female spinoff - dubbed The Expendabelles - came to nothing, a belated fourth entry arrived in 2023.
Sadly for followers of the action property, The Expendables 4's terrible box office and reviews almost certainly killed the series. There are many factors to blame for this, including lingering disappointment over 2014's lackluster third offing and the bizarre decision to sideline Stallone for most of the story. While one R-rated franchise has stumbled, the box-office success of Bad Boys: Ride or Die proves the Will Smith/Martin Lawrence saga is stronger than ever. Bad Boys 5 will almost certainly happen too, with the fourth entry providing the mix of laughs and action have come to expect.
Bad Boys: Ride Or Die Makes Jacob Scipio's Armando The Third Lead
Scipio is officially a Bad Boy
One of the shock twists from Bad Boys for Life's ending was that the movie's villain Armando (Jacob Scipio) was revealed to be Mike's secret son. This emotional reveal injected some depth into Mike's story, but considering all the chaos Armando had caused - including the assassination of Mike and Marcus' beloved Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) - this gave viewers conflicting feelings towards the character.
Bad Boys 4 gives Scipio's Armando a great redemption arc, where he aids Mike and Marcus in clearing the late Captain's name when Howard is posthumously accused of corruption. Armando even makes peace with Howard's vengeful daughter Judy (Rhea Seehorn) when he saves her daughter Callie during Bad Boys: Ride or Die's explosive ending. In just about every sense, Scipio is the sequel's third lead, and while he doesn't earn the same laughs as his co-stars, he turns in a scene-stealing turn.
Of course, Armando isn't being placed as a potential future replacement for Smith or Lawrence either. The character adds some edge to the Mike/Marcus dynamic, but they're still at the core of the series. Still, it's tricky for any long-running franchise to introduce a major new figure and slot them into the existing character dynamics, but Scipio's Armando has proven a worthy addition.
Ride Or Die Proves How Badly Scipio Was Wasted In Expendables 4
Scipio was a last-minute replacement for Antonio Banderas in the latest Expendables
Expend4bles
Where to Watch
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The Expendables 4 is the fourth entry in the action legacy-hero franchise, bringing together famous action-hero stars from the past and present to battle international terrorist threats. This fourth entry sees the mercenary group dragged into a catastrophic nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia, forcing them to intervene.
- Director
- Scott Waugh
- Release Date
- September 22, 2023
- Distributor(s)
- Lionsgate
- Writers
- Spenser Cohen , John Joseph Connolly , Max Adams
- Cast
- Dolph Lundgren , Randy Couture , Eddie Hall , Sylvester Stallone , Levy Tran , Iko Uwais , tony jaa , Sheila Shah , Jacob Scipio , Jason Statham , Andy Garcia , Megan Fox , 50 Cent
- Runtime
- 103 Minutes
- Franchise(s)
- The Expendables
- Budget
- $100 million
Expendables 4 was a poor showcase for Scipio, saddling him with unfunny dialogue and a bizarre subplot where he remains mute for a chunk of the story following the supposed death of Stallone's Barney.
Ride or Die isn't the best Bad Boys movie by any stretch, but it's an entertaining adventure that plays to the franchise's strengths. It follows through on Armando's arc from the third film too, where he not only has to earn redemption for his misdeeds but bond with his estranged father. Just like Bad Boys for Life, the latest entry gives Scipio a good showcase for his action skills. Bad Boys: Ride or Die is also Scipio's follow-up to the disastrous Expendables 4, where the young actor was largely wasted as the latest member of the titular mercenaries.
Scipio plays Galan in Expendables 4, the impulsive son of Antonio Banderas' Galgo from the third adventure. In fact, Banderas was penciled to reprise his role in the film, but when scheduling forced him out, a quick rewrite turned Galgo into his son, Galan. The film was a poor showcase for Scipio, saddling him with unfunny dialogue and a bizarre subplot where he remains mute for a chunk of the story following the supposed death of Stallone's Barney.
Scipio tries to overcome the weak material with hammy overacting, but there's little he can do to make it shine. Expendables 4 didn't give Scipio any standout action beats either, in contrast to his brutal fight scenes in Bad Boys: Ride or Die's. The latter film knew how to play to the actor's strengths, while the fourth Expendables just forced him to do his best Banderas impression.
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Expendables Has A History Of Wasting Its Younger Stars
Expendables has a poor track record of creating new action stars
The Expendables Franchise | Release Year | Box Office Gross | Rotten Tomatoes Score |
|---|---|---|---|
The Expendables | 2010 | $268,268,174 | 42% |
The Expendables 2 | 2012 | $311,979,256 | 67% |
The Expendables 3 | 2014 | $209,461,378 | 32% |
Expend4bles | 2023 | $51,133,603 | 14% |
The Expendables 3's biggest mistake was aiming to make the franchise PG-13, and trying to appeal to a younger audience. By design, these films are throwbacks to the blockbusters of the 1980s and 1990s, and while trying to pull in new fans is never a bad idea, it shouldn't come at the expense of the franchise's core tenets. This third outing introduced a gang of young, hip Expendables, with Ronda Rousey and Glen Powell among the new recruits.
Even so, the cast was so overstacked with genre icons that none of the younger characters had a chance to shine. Powell has since become a star thanks to Top Gun: Maverick and Hit Man, yet most completely forget he was even in an Expendables movie. In The Expendables 2, Liam Hemsworth was at least given some good scenes as the team's ill-fated sniper, but it didn't exactly set him up to become a new action star in his own right either.
Liam Hemsworth's Billy the Kid remains the only member of the Expendables to have died onscreen.
Expendables 4 sadly continued the series' tradition of undervaluing its new stars and not letting them shine. Scipio and co-star Levy Tran did their best to stand out among the ensemble, but the sequel never seems particularly interested in giving them the spotlight. Given how much he stands out in his Bad Boys appearances, Expendables 4 really misunderstood Scipio's potential.
Jacob Scipio Deserves His Own Action Film Following Bad Boys: Ride Or Die
It's time for Scipio to step out from the Bad Boys
The success of Bad Boys: Ride or Die might make another sequel inevitable, but it will hopefully see Scipio given an action project of his own to front. Much of the star's career so far has seen him playing supporting roles alongside names like Michael B. Jordan, Nic Cage and Will Smith, but his work as Armando proves he's ready to take center stage in a movie of his own.
Jacob Scipio also appeared in canceled DCU adventure Batgirl, which was helmed by his Bad Boys directors Adil & Bilall.
Scipio doesn't currently appear attached to any upcoming movies or shows, but again, Ride or Die's success will soon change that. If the Bad Boys franchise wanted to get a little experimental, a spinoff focusing on Armando - featuring guest appearances by Smith's Mike and Lawrence's Marcus, naturally - would be an interesting angle to take. Ride or Die's ending even sets this up, with Armando having to go on the run following the finale. Regardless, Scipio would be wise to test out his leading man abilities for his Bad Boys follow-up, and prove he can front his own projects.
Source: The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is the fourth installment in the action-comedy film series starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The series centers on hard-boiled Miami detectives Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett, who take on dangerous drug kingpins and thwart dangerous schemes as they attempt to stop the circulation of illicit drugs in their city.
- Director
- Adil El Arbi , Bilall Fallah
- Release Date
- June 7, 2024
- Studio(s)
- Columbia Pictures , 2.0 Entertainment , Don Simpson Films , Jerry Bruckheimer Films , Westbrook Studios
- Writers
- Chris Bremner
- Cast
- Will Smith , Martin Lawrence , Vanessa Hudgens , Alexander Ludwig , Paola Núñez , Eric Dane , Ioan Gruffudd , Tasha Smith
- Franchise(s)
- Bad Boys
- prequel(s)
- Bad Boys (1995) , Bad Boys 2 , Bad Boys for Life
