The Bad Guys (2022) Review

 "Don't mind us.  Just robbing the place."
-Mr. Wolf



When one of their heists goes horribly wrong, Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell) and his gang of thieves have one shot to avoid prison.  Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade) accepts a challenge to try and get these bad guys back on the straight and narrow path.  Can they make any real progress, or is all of their good behavior a con to get out of prison?


What Works:

I love the style of animation of The Bad Guys.  I did some reading about this film and saw that the filmmakers were very inspired by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and wanted to change up their animation style for this movie.  I think it works incredibly well.  It's not as insane as Spider-Verse, but it's certainly stylish, especially in the 3rd act.

I love the opening sequence of the film.  It starts off with some major Pulp Fiction vibes.  I wasn't really expecting that from a kids movie.  It's a fun sequence that sets the tone and introduces to us to our leads, while having a lot of fun in the process.

The main reason I wanted to see this movie is Sam Rockwell.  The man can do no wrong.  Even movies of his that I don't like are never because of him.  I was excited to see him have the lead voice role.  He does a great job as the charismatic Mr. Wolf, especially when he isn't nearly as cool as he tries to be.

Finally, this is primarily a heist movie and it is fun seeing these characters in action.  Since this is an animated movie, the heists can be dialed up to 11.  I especially like the anti-heist where they try to free guinea pigs from a science lab.


What Sucks:

This movie does a very bad job at world building.  I understand almost nothing about how this world works.  The majority of the people in this world are humans, but there are also a handful of anthropomorphic animals running around, but not very many.  We also have normal animals who can't talk, like cats and guinea pigs.  No one ever draws attention to it and I was left with lots of questions.  Maybe if it been a more even split of humans to animals, like in Bojack Horseman.  But it goes beyond the animals characters.  I had some questions about the dynamics of this world and it reminded me of a lesser version of Zootopia.

Speaking of Zootopia, the themes and overall story of The Bad Guys reminded me a lot of this movie.  The only real difference is the main characters are criminals instead of cops.  The overall message is the same, but Zootopia went a lot farther with what they were trying to say and did a much stronger job.

Finally, this is a kids movie, so a lot of the humor didn't work for me.  Some of it did for sure, but I've never really been one for fart jokes and humor along those lines.  The humor was hit-or-miss with an emphasis on the miss.


Verdict:

The Bad Guys was a fun little movie with excellent animation, a fun opening, a great performance from Sam Rockwell, and very entertaining heist sequences.  The movie had a lot of unfulfilled potential in terms of themes and world-building, and not all of the humor lands, but I would still say this movie is worth a watch.

 7/10: Good 

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