Good ‘Bad’ Movie
The Wolf Pack returns with a plea for prison reform. What’s that now?
The BAd Guys 2
Director: Pierre Perifel • Writers: Etan Cohen, Yoni Brenner, based on the books by Aaron Blabey
Starring [English]: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne
USA • 1hr 44mins
Opens Hong Kong July 31 • I
Grade: B
Did anyone see the success of The Bad Guys coming back in 2022? If you say you did, you’re a lying liar who lies. First time big budget feature animator Pierre Perifel – the guy made a pair of shorts totalling nine minutes to that point – turned in what could be DreamWorks’ stealthiest hit ever, picking up 250 million unforeseen US dollars mostly because that film was legit funny at points, had some sleek art and, above all, a stellar voice cast. There was nothing especially cutting edge about TBG; it sent all the messages about found families, generosity, redemption and identity as most all-ages films like it do. But it had Sam Rockwell as Bad Guys-turned-Good Guys leader Mr Wolf, and frankly a little Rockwell goes a long, long, long way. Dude is so wry and cool you can literally hear it in his voice. So Rockwell + surprise money-maker X multi-part source material = sequel. This is math that’s more reliable than Pythagoras.
This remarkably quick sequel, innovatively titled The Bad Guys 2 (and yes, The Bad Guys 3 is already in development) starts with a useless prologue set in Cairo years ago, revelaing how Mr Wolf got his sweet, sweet ride. We then switch to “present” and check in with the (former) Bad Guys to see how they’re getting on in their post-prison lives. Short version: not well. No one will give an ex-con a break, the bills are piling up and there’s another master thief floating around, pulling off brilliant heists and framing the Bad Guys. An animated heist comedy with anthropomorphised wolves, foxes and spiders isn’t a traditional source for thoughful considerations of discrimination based on jail time, the challenges of societal reintegration, cycles and the futility of “doing good” but there you have it. The Bad Guys 2 is fun, but Perifel and writers Etan Cohen and Yoni Brenner have upped the adult content ante and, bizarrely, delivered a superior sequel. Mon dieu.
Parole is hard
Following a series of terrible job interviews that result in no jobs, Mr Wolf, master of disguise Mr Shark (Craig Robinson), muscle Mr Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and hacker Ms Tarantula (Awkwafina) are gathered around the TV on their ratty sofa discussing the lack of trust out there, which is not helped at all by the mysterious Phantom Bandit running around stealing stuff made from MacGuffinite (cute, movie). The Bad Guys tell their reluctant ally and police commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein) the next job will likely be at a lucha libre tournament and sadly also deduce the culprit is probably the shadier-than-usual Mr Snake (Marc Maron), Wolf’s right hand. Crushed, they call him out but it turns out he hasn’t done anything wrong: He’s got a girlfriend, a raven called Susan (Natasha Lyonne, and seriously is she in fucking everything this summer?). He didn’t want to jinx it. Awwww. No surprise, the championship Lords of Lucha belt is stolen by the Phantom Bandit, who turns out to be Pigtail Petrova (Maria Bakalova), part of the Bad Girls squad led by Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks, given much more to do than in Minecraft). The Bad Girls scoop up the Bad Guys and offer them a deal: Solve all your problems by going bad again for One Last Job. There’s blackmail involved too, so there’s not much of a choice. Cue the heist of tech billionaire Mr Moon’s (Colin Jost) MoonX rocket, and it seems Elon Musk is going to have to be dead to stop being the butt of every joke or the supervillain in every movie for the foreseeable future.
Like, oh, let’s count, every sequel ever, The Bad Guys 2 doubles down on the visual antics, the size of the storytelling – it’s a really complex heist – and expands the roster of characters as if the sure-fire solution to success is more more more. That said, while The Bad Guys 2 indeed does more of everything it does so with genuine brains and an unexpected degree of restraint, such as it is. It helps that the film has some curious (for kids’ fare) thematic undercurrents, and that Cohen and Brenner don’t pretend the events of the first film have no lasting impacts or consequences. Mr Wolf’s shitbox hatchback is amusing, but it’s also indicative of his sudden lack of resources. His interview at a bank he robbed three times is quite funny but it’s also indicative of how many doors get slammed in the faces of people trying to cobble a life back together after a misstep. Kitty Kat’s devotion to a pessimistic “When they go low, we go lower” ethos rooted in the confidence that trying to prove personal growth, that age/race/gender are irrelevant sometimes, that being good is worth it really isn’t, is entirely understandable. Look at what happens when Governor Foxington’s (Zazie Beetz) past as the Crimson Paw is discovered. Right or wrong, the past, the story suggests, will always haunt you because no one else will let it go.
Which is not to say The Bad Guys 2 is some sort of angsty, existential meditation. It’s very entertaining, with gorgeous art that mixes formats, great voice performances, fart jokes for kids and some low-key killer comedy for everyone else. Mr Snake’s post-incarceration new age yoga mom persona is realised only as Maron could, the MoonX rocket that becomes a literal drain on the world’s resources is a nice sharp barb, Snake and Susan making out is the best sight gag of the year for anyone traumatised by PDAs, and I didn’t know I needed to see the Bad Guys nemesis guinea pig, Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade), all swole from his prison workouts. Chef’s kiss.