THE BAD GUYS 2 Review: The Rare Sequel That Significantly Improves On Its Predecessor
When we first met the Sam Rockwell-voiced Mr. Wolf, the whistle-slick, silver-tongued animated star of The Bad Guys, DreamWorks Animation Studios’s modestly successful 2022 animated release, he was living the life -- the criminal life.
As a George Clooney-in-Ocean's-11-inspired heist-master, the anthropomorphic Wolf and his onetime partners-in-crime, Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), a slithery, stealthy safecracker, Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), a bumbling, stumbling, shockingly successful master of disguise, Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), a pint-sized bruiser, and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), nicknamed “Webs” for her next-level hacking skills, stole from the wealthy and the well-insured and gave the proceeds to the most deserving, i.e., themselves.
All that changed when said "Bad Guys," their nom-de-crime in the onscreen world, a sun-bleached Los Angeles of the imagination, found themselves not just doing good, but wanting to do good (because it made them feel good). As in the real world and the imaginary one in The Bad Guys 2, though, if you do the crime — or in their case, multiple, high-profile crimes — you better be prepared to do the (prison) time.
It’s a harsh, positively unwelcome, reality that Mr. Wolf and company faced in the final moments of the last film: Thwarting crime and saving the day might get you back-pats and cheers in response, but getting a literal out-of-jail card wasn't included. Fairness aside, jail time awaited the do-gooding Bad Guys as the end credits rolled on the first entry.
In the 2022 film, the title characters stopped Professor Rupert Marmalade IV (Richard Ayoade), a master criminal with an inferiority complex to match his diminutive size, from putting his diabolical plan into action. Their public do-gooding temporarily repaired their reputations, but their their criminal records remained unchanged. Once out of jail, the reformed Bad Guys discover that doing time for your crime doesn't make it easier to get gainful employment. Their inability to find work leaves them penniless and facing eviction from their digs.
The Bad Guys 2 doesn’t remain in bummer territory for long, though. Once the sequel moves past a frenetic, kinetic prologue set in their crime-spree past and returns to the glum, downbeat present, it wastes little time pivoting to the central conflict: Another criminal gang or thief with a penchant for high-end heists brings suspicion back onto the Bad Guys. Maybe they’re not so reformed after all, but only pretending to be reformed.
Besides the action-oriented prologue, The Bad Guys 2 rides or dies on two major set pieces, each more spectacular and inventive than the last. The first, present-day set piece takes the gang to a massive outdoor Mexican wrestling match to save a jewel-encrusted championship belt from being stolen. As expected, all heck breaks loose, eventually turns in a free-for-all involving Looney Tunes-inspired pyrotechnics, in turn leading to a sustained bout of absurdity unmatched by anything in the previous film.
The second, significantly bigger set piece takes The Bad Guys 2 into surprisingly welcome Mission: Impossible/James Bond territory. They’re forced to face off against their shadow selves, mirror reflections in the form of the Bad Girls: Susan Doom (Natasha Lyonne), a raven with a reptile fetish; Pigtail Petrova (Maria Bakalova), a dim porcine bruiser; and their leader, Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks), a resentful, bitter puma eager to prove herself Wolf’s better as an all-around master criminal.
The rationale for the second, borderline glorious set piece barely passes even a cursory examination, but given the results, any criticism in that direction feels, if not entirely unwarranted, then of minor importance. Once again mixing the two- and three-dimensional animation style of the first film, but taking it to the next, bigger budgeted level, the third act satisfies on practically every level, emotional, dramatic, and thematic.
The stakes are no doubt bigger the second time around and yet they serve the first entry’s central points about the possibility of reform, redemption, and the value of found families. Sometimes, found families might not just do good for good’s sake. Sometimes they might even do good to save themselves and a world unready to see them as heroes, not criminals.
The Bad Guys 2 opens Friday, August 1, only in movie theaters, via Universal Pictures. Visit the official site for locations and showtimes (in Canada) or its counterpart (in US).
The Bad Guys 2
Director(s)
- Pierre Perifel
- JP Sans
Writer(s)
- Aaron Blabey
Cast
- Sam Rockwell
- Marc Maron
- Craig Robinson
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