An alright commentary by Michael Bay standards, but it ranks lower than Armageddon and The Rock.

He covers the various problems he had with funding and how he had to pony up his own money to finish portions of the films. He also talks about Joey Pants acting like a jackass and trying to screw up a scene just to take the attention away from Martin Lawrence.

All in all it is informative but it lacks the entertainment the Bay brought to his other commentaries.

Yeah, Michael Bay knows he is making a popcorn flick.
Yes, there are many anecdotes about on-set jokes.
But the real treat about listening to this commentary is listening to Michael Bay talk about having such a small budget. If you consider $30 million dollars a small budget. It's $30 million dollars! I know it's probably small for a big action movie, but seriously. 30,000,000 dollars is quite a large number considering that Will Smith got like $350,000 and Martin Lawrence probably got less.
Rant complete. Now go listen.

This guy plugs 'Pearl Harbor' twice. The track was obviously recorded before 2001 (probably 2000, I'm guessing). This was also spliced from a few different things, it seems. There are also some pretty nifty gaps, which get kind of annoying, given this is Mr. Bay's first movie. He starts out by saying you could drive a truck through the holes in the script. He also says that the two leads are so good, you kind of forget about those holes. He mentions that the original script was written for Dana Carvey and Jon Lovitz. How bad would that have been? (Nothing against Mr. Carvey and Mr. Lovitz, though...) He says the budget was only $17 million dollars (in comparison to $23 million IMDB says). He points out the little tricks he does to get the reactions/improvs he wanted. He also points out the improvs themselves. The little comments and other things are very interesting. He can tell a story pretty well. It's a nice track, but I could do without the gaps.

Okay. So this isn't a review of Michael Bay's "Bad Boys."
No, I'm going back to THE original "BAD BOYS" from 1983. Seriously, if you are a fan of prison films, Sean Penn, and Chicago flicks; breakout and see this early '80s gem. Then listen to the commentary track by Director Rick Rosenthal. It is chock-full of nifty tidbits and insight into the filmmaking process. Lots of Info on early work with Stead-i-Cam, casting, and negotiating with that firebrand performer known as Sean Penn. You'll recognize some familiar faces from other classic '80s teen films, and hear great stories about their casting. For fans of "Halloween II" out there, be sure to listen and watch for some nice lil' Easter Eggs. I picked this baby up in a bargain bin, and watched the film and commentary back-to-back. Solid 8/10. So, yeah "Michael Bay Sucks." "Bad Boys" does not.

From the POV of a successful and powerful filmmaker Bay recalls his first motion picture. The commentary was recorded in 2000 and with an already established cinematic style and approach Bay offers a pretty damn honest and interesting commentary for "Bad Boys".

He talks about the budget issues, on-set experiences, script issues, the improv by the actors, how the Miami crew treated him and how he paid from his own pocked for certain scenes.

For Michael Bay fans, this is a must-listen commentary.

As Bakersfield said, this commentary is nice because a good five years had passed from making this movie, which allows Bay a bit of time and hindsight to look back and be able to point out things he wasn't fond of or would do better next time, etc.. It's a great balance of interesting bits of info, anecdotes, criticisms of his own work, what he feels worked well, his admiration for the actors and the troubles he faced as a young, new director on the block with what was a massive project (for him at the time) yet also a small-budget film (at the time).

There are some moments of dead air, but it's nothing too distracting.

Any "Pearl Harbor" plugs are because this commentary was recorded right as "Pearl Harbor" was in development and he was attached to the project. So it's not like he's saying "OMG go see the movie when it comes out", he just works it *occasionally* into the conversation about how he's going to be directing said movie.

Definitely recommended for any fan of Michael Bay or just the movie.

FUN FACTS/QUOTES:

-Sony paid $3 million for the rights to the script.

-Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey were originally the leads.

-Bay's fee for the movie was $100,000 - of which, he paid $25,000 of that out of his own pocket in order to finance an action beat in the finale.

-A lot of moments were inspired by true police events and he goes into detail about them.

-"We learned a lot about cutting heroin in this movie. ...Probably more than I wanted to know."

-"My phrase for everything in this movie was 'Don't worry, it's gonna be bitchin'!'"