Unless you were already familiar with the many-volumed series of kid-friendly graphic novels, there’s a good chance that 2022’s The Bad Guys took you by surprise, as it did me.
With its hip cast and heavily stylized action, the anthropomorphic comedy caper was a sleeper hit for Dreamworks – a studio whose animation output is pretty mixed bag of some really astounding films and some other stuff that rhymes with dreck.
After the first film, the gang of thieves known as “The Bad Guys” – Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina) – have turned over a new leaf. But being good guys doesn’t pay the bills, and like many ex-cons, they find it hard to land legitimate work due to their criminal histories.
Still, the gang, who share an apartment and have traded down their trademark black muscle car for a jalopy, try to do their best to stay on the path of righteousness. (The film’s opening action sequence, a rousing flashback to how they originally stole the car, reminds us of the good old bad days).
Despite keeping their noses clean, a series of copycat crimes has the former bad guys once again under suspicion, complicating things with their foe-turned-friend, the Chief – now Commissioner – Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein).
Their best play is to use their expertise to crack the case and clear their names, but this new gang – the Bad Girls (Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, and Maria Bakalova) – may be even better than they were, turning the tables with some good old fashioned blackmail. If the Bad Guys don’t aid them in their heist, the girls will reveal the secret identity of their friend and ally, the Crimson Paw (Zazie Beetz) – a reformed former thief who is now the mayor, her secret past unknown to the public.
With little choice, the team goes on one last heist – but the Bad Girls’ ultimate plan is far more huge and daring than anything they could have ever anticipated.
As with the previous film, the concoction is an entertaining one, driven by the fun and humorous animal characters, propulsive action, and daring heists. I happened to catch this film theatrically at the theater, and remarked at the time that it was one of the best 3-D films I’ve seen in a long time. With other films, the 3-D can feel like a gimmick or sometimes just isn’t done well, but the kinetic, large scale action just suited the format perfectly. And while this home release isn’t in 3-D, I think the observation is still relevant – this is a superbly put-together action-comedy, in eye-popping 4K UHD.
My only real reservation is that sometimes it takes this too far. Obviously I’m not looking for a scientifically accurate animated film, but sometimes the disrespect for physics is just too absurd, not grounded in even a fictional reality.
But these observations are infrequent and ultimately not a huge deterrent to enjoying a really fun and goofy movie packed with action.
And for a certain subset of viewers, the appeal of the Bad Guys is keyed to something even more specific: it’s a thinly veiled riff of the long-running heist anime, Lupin the Third. The clearest parallel is with main character “Wolf”, whose lanky build and jerky animation is a dead ringer for the gentleman thief Lupin. Even their names are the same: Lupin means “Wolf”, and in some translations of the anime, he’s simply named “Wolf”. And like Lupin, Wolf has a cadre of friends whose specialized skills are handy in a heist.
It’s another layer to why these films are a blast, and if the movie’s ending stinger is any indication, it looks like they plan to keep making more of them.
The Package
I’m reviewing the 4K UHD version of the film, which also comes with a standard Blu-ray and a MOvies Anywhere digital copy.
My copy came with a slipcover, featuring metallic highlights and an embossed title
Special Features and Extras:
- LITTLE LIES AND ALIBIS: A fun and worthy theatrical short which previously screened with Dogman. The Bad Guys recount the wild and crazy comedy of errors explaining why they’re late for their parole hearing. This is a good short, which does merit some explanation because Dreamworks is gonna Dreamworks. (As with other great movie properties like How to Train Your Dragon, they’re never shy about sullying their best brands with peripheral slop. There have already been a couple of execrable Bad Guys holiday-themed shorts. This is not one of them). This inclusion is a great and meaningful bonus.
- Deleted Scenes with Introductions by Director Pierre Perifel and Co-Director JP Sans:
- Lowrider Chase
- Crime Sisters
- Featurettes:
- BAD GUYS: Out of Line
- Double Jeopardy: The Making of THE BAD GUYS 2
- Meet the Gang
- Double Trouble: The Animals Behind THE BAD GUYS 2
- Causing a Scene
- Planning the Heist
- Sketching the Bad Girls:
- Kitty
- Doom
- Pigtail
- Feature Commentary with Director Pierre Perifel, Co-Director JP Sans, Head of Character Animation Benjamin Willis, Head of Story Katherine de Vries, and Head of Cinematography, Layout Théophile Bondoux
A/V Out
Get it at Amazon: The Bad Guys 2 – [4K UHD] | [Blu-ray] | [Digital]
If you enjoy reading Cinapse, purchasing items through our affiliate links can tip us with a small commission at no additional cost to you.
