Will Smith gets slapped in latest comeback attempt

The best part of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” arrives near the end of the film when Martin Lawrence slaps Will Smith in the face and yells “bad boy!”

What a shame that it’s fake.

Perhaps in years to come, audiences will enjoy this action-comedy, the fourth entry of the past-its-prime, three-decade-old series, without thinking about its star smacking comedian Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars back in 2022.

But, for the time being anyway, that bizarre incident is still fresh on viewers’ minds, and the “Independence Day” actor remains a very challenging guy to like — even in an easily digestible buddy-cop movie.

His second go at a comeback after last year’s “Emancipation” would suggest a clichéd old phrase about third times.

In the mediocre sequel to 2020’s surprisingly fun “Bad Boys for Life,” Smith is completely dead behind the eyes, with that glazed-over look of corporate burnout. Maybe his peepers are tired from watching his Q score plummet for two years.

Not so of his co-star Lawrence, who is as boisterously silly as ever, playing a bumbling Miami police officer for whom enforcing the law is an annoyance.

When his character Marcus suffers a heart attack and has a near death experience, he becomes obsessed with discreetly eating Skittles and Doritos behind his concerned wife’s back. Strange visions have led him to believe that he’s invincible. It’s random, but it’s something.

Lawrence’s irrepressible comic energy — I could listen to him shout “Oh s-–t!” on an endless loop — is what keeps “Ride or Die” from being a routine traffic stop.

Yes, it’s true that Smith’s Mike has always been the straight man of the duo. But here he’s practically RoboCop.

No longer a “terminal bachelor,” Mike weds Christine (Melanie Liburd) at the start and strenuously cracks a couple smiles. The honeymoon phase lasts barely a minute, however, because the partners soon learn that the late Miami PD Captain Howard has been accused of covertly working for South American drug cartels.

With the help of Mike’s incarcerated, long-lost son Armando (Jacob Scipio) — a drug lord, himself — the pair attempts to clear their beloved captain’s name.

How they go about doing so doesn’t matter all that much. They wind up in car chases and meet shady criminals at “John Wick”-y neon nightclubs. One is played by a misused Tiffany Haddish.

Nobody expects the plots of the “Bad Boys” films to be memorable or inventive, and that’s OK. They are meant to be canvases for the sparky combo of Smith and Lawrence. 

This one tries way too hard to be deeper. “Ride or Die” — which, like “For Life,” is directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah — gets in the weeds with double-crossings, multiple manhunts and disparate character motivations. 

Howard’s daughter Judy (Rhea Seehorn), for example, is a US Marshall agent who despises Armando for murdering her dad, and pursues Mike and Marcus for enabling him. The character is as flat as an ice rink and her importance to the film amounts to 30 cheesy seconds.

Eric Dane’s hair plays the villain — well, one of them — a shadowy figure who’s using Captain Howard to disguise his own misdeeds. He’s rather forgettable, though. McSteamy with a gun.

With a formulaic plot and adequate supporting players, Smith phoning it in presents a major roadblock for a series as reliant on two leads’ chemistry as this one. 

The title, of course, refers to the most loyal of friendships. But when posed as a question for the future of “Bad Boys,” I’d pick “die.”