Summary

Will Smith portrays Mike Lowrey in the Bad Boys franchise.
Mike is seen at various ages throughout the movies, from his early 20s through age 50.
Will Smith is consistently slightly older than his Bad Boys character.

Will Smith’s Bad Boys franchise character Mike Lowrey has been seen at a variety of ages throughout the franchise. Mike was originally introduced in the original 1995 movie opposite his partner Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), with whom he works as a narcotics detective with the Miami Police Department. Although the movies in the franchise have been hits, the shortest hiatus between any two installments was four years, between the third movie, 2020’s Bad Boys for Life, and the fourth movie, 2024’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die.

The Bad Boys: Ride or Die release comes just shy of the franchise’s 30th anniversary. Because its installments are so spread out over such a wide swath of time, the ages of the characters have changed drastically from their debut through their most recent appearance. While certain vagaries or inconsistencies in Mike Lowrey’s backstory make his exact age somewhat difficult to pin down in some of the earlier entries, the fact that the story follows the franchise’s real-life release timeline relatively closely allows his age to be determined with reasonable accuracy even when it is not mentioned.

Mike Lowrey Is 20-22 Years Old In Bad Boys

Bad Boys Premiered on April 7, 1995

The movie that kicked off the Bad Boys franchise depicts Will Smith’s Mike Lowrey as a fresh-faced law enforcement recruit whose rough age lies somewhere between 20 and 22. It is known that the character joined the police academy a year after graduating from Florida’s Palmetto High School, and from there he was recruited by Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano). Details shared in later movies reveal that Mike’s first mission after recruitment involved going undercover at a drug cartel, where he posed as a driver for Isabel Aretas (Kate del Castillo), with whom he began an affair.

During that time, despite considering running away with Isabel, he turned her in, where she – unbeknownst to Mike – had his child while in prison, eight months later. He didn’t partner with Marcus until after the end of his relationship with Isabel, though seemingly it took place before the birth of his son in the mid-90s. Because of this, the first movie, which is set roughly in 1995, would take place somewhere within just a few years after his high school graduation, which would place the character in his early 20s.

Mike Lowrey Is 28-30 Years Old In Bad Boys II

Bad Boys II Premiered on July 18, 2003

Bad Boys II set the precedent of the franchise following along closely with the release timeline of the movies. This was likely the case because of the long hiatus between installments. If it had come out just two or three years after the original, it may have taken place much closer to the events depicted at the end of the 1995 movie. However, the eight-year time gap meant that the actors both looked substantially older, requiring eight years to pass between movies as well and placing the events of the movie in the early 2000s.

Given the character’s age in the original movie, this time jump would place Mike Lowrey somewhere between 28 and 30 years old at the time of the first sequel. The storylines of the 1995 original and its sequel, which seemed largely unrelated when Bad Boys II premiered, would later be connected by the events of Bad Boys: Ride or Die. This underscores the fact that the timeline has been kept relatively consistent over the years.

Mike Lowrey Is 45-46 Years Old In Bad Boys for Life

Bad Boys for Life Premiered on January 17, 2020

Before the Bad Boys trilogy became a quadrilogy, the third movie introduced a slight wrinkle in the timeline. While the previous movies take place roughly in the year that they came out, it is possible that Bad Boys for Life took place in 2019 rather than 2020, making Mike either 45 or 46. The clue to the in-universe timeline here comes in a line of dialogue when Mike reveals his suspicion that the assassin Armando Aretas (Jacob Scipio) is his illegitimate son.

His confession reveals his affair with Armando’s mother Isabel, which he says took place before he and Marcus partnered up, “24 years ago.” The exact timeline implied by this line is somewhat unclear. If Mike meant to say that Armando was born 24 years before 2020, in 1996, this would be consistent with him sending Isabel to prison in 1995. However, if it is meant to imply that his undercover work began 24 years before, that would force the timeline to shift back to at least 2019 to accommodate the events that would need to have happened in the meantime.

Mike Lowrey Is 50 Years Old In Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Bad Boys: Ride or Die Premiered on June 7, 2024

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is the movie that plots the most important point for extrapolating Mike Lowrey’s age throughout the rest of the franchise. In the movie, a line of dialogue that Rita (Paola Núñez) has during a conversation with Mike at his wedding reception reveals that he is 50 years old. Barring continuity errors and assuming that Mike may have made a mistake in his line about what took place 24 years before Bad Boys for Life, this is reasonably consistent with the franchise’s overall timeline.

It can be safely assumed that four years have passed…

Bad Boys: Ride or Die also doesn’t necessarily explicitly detail how many years have passed since the events of Bad Boys for Life. However, given the precedent set by the previous three movies, it can be safely assumed that four years have passed, just like in real life. The movie also reveals that, in the time between the third and fourth movies, Mike met, fell in love with, and got engaged to his physical therapist Christine (Melanie Liburd), who he married at the beginning of the movie. This is a process that could very well have reasonably taken four years.

How Will Smith’s Age Compares To Mike’s In Each Bad Boys Movie

Will Smith’s Age Doesn’t Ever Perfectly Line Up With His Bad Boys Character

Title
Mike’s Age
Will Smith’s Age

Bad Boys (1995)
20-22
26

Bad Boys II (2003)
28-30
34

Bad Boys for Life (2020)
45-46
51

Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
50
55

Will Smith’s age is much easier to track than Mike Lowrey’s. The Oscar-winning actor was born on September 25, 1968, which means he was consistently slightly older than Mike during the year of release for each of the Bad Boys movies. While the movies were filmed earlier than the years in which they were released, Smith would have still been older while filming, as he was a month shy of his 26th birthday when production on the first movie began, 33 when they started the second, 50 when they shot the third, and 54 when they made Ride or Die.