THE BAD GUYS (2022)

THE BAD GUYS (2022)

Tagline: Good is No Fun at All

(Crime, Comedy, Never Trust a Rodent) [PG]

Wait a sec, you're The Crimson Paw? The queen of cons, acrobatic swiss army knife; stole the Zumpango diamond, twice, once for profit second time just for fun. Never identified, never caught.

The plot follows Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Shark, and Ms. Tarantula. They are the bad guys and have had a life of crime that has involved heists that have stifled authorities for years. Finally, they have been caught and in order to avoid jail they are challenged to become model citizens under the program developed by Professor Marmalade. Is it possible for lifetime criminals to turn over a new leaf? 

Okay, in my head this movie wasn’t bad at all. We actually get some funny lines and Sam Rockwell (SEE HOW THEY RUN) grows on me as the voice of Mr. Wolf. He does voice the role a bit “George Clooney-like" which was apparently intentional, but overall this is another solid outing for Sam. The animation style is definitely different from a lot of stuff out there and I actually really enjoyed that aspect. As an artist, I am very picky about how the animation looks and this one really did the trick. This was also a solid outing for Awkwafina (SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS) as Ms. Tarantula who is very adept at voice work. Craig Robinson is okay as Mr. Shark, but I think if you are going to use him, you put him in a lead role somewhere. He has a unique voice and it seems like kind of a waste to him largely playing a background character. Zazie Beetz (BULLET TRAIN) is solid as Diane Foxington and her chemistry with Mr. Fox for an animated movie is pretty great. 

This movie does start off okay, but unless you like the animation which borrowed its style from SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, it’s hard to tell if any of these characters are going to be likable when you get past some of the corny jokes. As it turns out, Mr. Wolf is actually likable, but I could give or take everyone else in this movie aside from Diane Foxington and I am not 100% on her. Because of this you kind of want this story to move along after the first act and it doesn’t. It actually slows to a crawl for the rest of the film with the exception of the last 20 minutes until we finally figure out what the heck is even really going on. 

When we do find out what’s going on…it’s kind of a let-down, because at least the previews didn’t lead me to believe this was just really going to be a bit of an animated OCEAN'S ELEVEN. Some of the action sequences and chase scenes near the end are pretty cool and overall I didn’t hate this movie. It’s unfortunately just not a big “knock it out of the park” film. It also kind of frustrates me that there are so many other properties Dreamworks could have done and this is what they pick? Even if it has to be a children’s series, there is an ocean of ideas out there better than the stuff we have seen in live-action for the most part (minus some of the mind control). 

Admittedly some of the things I didn’t like might be what others did. If this ever comes on a streaming service, I might watch it again, but when you have fairly recent stuff like TURNING RED and RON’S GONE WRONG out there, I don’t really see myself running to this. 

THE BAD GUYS gets a 3 out of 7. Cutting this by 20 minutes and putting some interesting things in the middle would have bumped up the score. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF DREAMWORKS ANIMATION AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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