The Bad Guys 2 opens in theaters Friday, August 1.
The Bad Guys 2 is a solid upgrade of its predecessor’s slick action and comedy. It ramps up the winning charms of 2022’s The Bad Guys, achieving the same fast pace and snappy editing at a grander scale. The big showcase moments are more convoluted here, but in a way that allows the very talented animation team to pull bigger battles and laughs from a greater number of moving pieces. Even things that didn’t work in the first movie, like its occasionally corny sense of humor, are improved, offering gags that are less broad, but not too niche, either. Yet the biggest problem from The Bad Guys remains: a predictable plot that, while fun to watch and underlined by some surprisingly sophisticated themes, keeps The Bad Guys 2 from achieving its full potential.
From its earliest moments, The Bad Guys 2 hits upon some intriguing ideas. Out of jail and and wanting to do good, the once-larcenous quintet of Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Snake (Marc Maron), Tarantula (Awkwafina), Shark (Craig Robinson), and Piranha (Anthony Ramos) struggle to reintegrate into society. Their fallen fortunes are played for some solid laughs – particularly when Wolf applies for a job at a bank he’s robbed multiple times – but they speak to something real, too: The obstacles people face after incarceration, which may lead them back to a life of crime. Yes, this is a talking-animal movie with the vicious cycle of recidivism on its mind, and The Bad Guys 2 points out the lack of a safety net for Wolf and company while also using it to drive a story about them getting roped into a scheme to steal an experimental rocket.
It’s relatively mature stuff for an all-ages audience, but it’s brought to a disappointing conclusion: The Bad Guys just need to work harder to earn people’s respect. Far more satisfying than this up-by-your-bootstraps messaging is The Bad Guys 2’s action: The winning formula of the first movie is in top gear here, literally so in the case of the opening sequence. The origin story of The Bad Guys’ black getaway car is told in a thrilling chase scene boasting some sharp editing, great heaps of wreckage, and physics-defying jumps and turns. There’s such a smooth control to the chaos here, and every action scene that follows is as exhilarating as it is intoxicating. One brawl takes place at a wrestling show; it’s a great visual backdrop to the gang’s attempts at heroics, which are thwarted by Pigtail (Maria Bakalova), a member of a new crew of thieves looking to exploit The Bad Guys’ heisting skills.
Pigtail and her pals Kitty Cat (Danielle Brooks) and Doom (Natasha Lyonne) have skillsets that contribute to The Bad Guys 2’s eclectic brand of action. Unfortunately, none of their personalities pop in the way the main characters’ do. Pigtail and Doom simply don’t have enough to do, and while Kitty Cat is an interesting foil for Wolf, her dialogue is dispiritingly bland.
The Bad Guys was one of the first films to embrace the mix of 3D-animation techniques and 2D effects pioneered by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and that style is preserved here. And it’s for the better: Layering 2D lines on top of CG characters gives them so much depth, enabling more intense expressions – and more texture to their fur or scales, to boot. Also, the way that fire, smoke and other effects are drawn completely in 2D offer far more appealing and cartoonishly exaggerated visuals than if they were all 3D. When The Bad Guys pull off in a car and a cloud of scribbles and sketches burst from the exhaust pipe, it’s so satisfying to watch. There are subtle changes to the art style here – like the occasional fully 2D impact frame and more hand drawn lines on the characters themselves – but they’re few and far between.
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