Film Review: The Bad Guys 2
Arts
The Bad Guys 2
Director: Pierre Perifel
DreamWorks Animation
In Theaters: 08.01.2025
It might surprise you to learn that The Bad Guys 2 was among my most highly anticipated releases of the summer blockbuster season, though there are three major reasons for this fact: 1. I’m a big animation fan, and the first movie was delightful, 2. I love going to the movies with my nephews Timmy (age 9) and Peter (age 6), who are aspiring film critics themselves, and 3. the incomparable Maria Bakalova (Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, The Apprentice) — who can make any movie watchable — provides one of the voices this time around. When I spoke to to her a few months ago, she told me about the long list of movies she had coming up, saying that this one stood out to her and she was thrilled to hear about how pumped my nephews and I were to see it.
The Bad Guys 2 begins one year after the events of the first movie, as the titular thieves — Wolf (Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Snake (Marc Maron, To Leslie), Shark (Craig Robinson, The Office, Hot Tub Time Machine), Webs (Awkwafina, The Farewell) and Piranha (Anthony Ramos, In The Heights) — struggle to find honest work due to their criminal past. While they have the support of Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz, Deadpool 2), they try to stay on the right path, but a new villain, the Phantom Bandit, drags them back into the underworld. Teaming up with their old-rival-turned-police-commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), they attempt to crack the case, only to be framed and captured by a trio of cunning female criminals known as the Bad Girls: snow leopard, Kitty (Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple, A Minecraft Movie), wild boar, Pigtail Petrova (Bakalova, who previously played the wife of a bore in The Apprentice) and Snake’s girlfriend, Susan (Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face, His Three Daughters), a raven code-named Doom. When Kitty blackmails the Bad Guys into helping them steal a rare metal known as McGuffiinite, the Bad Guys must pull off one more job to clear their names.
The Bad Guys 2, like its predecessor, is a clever and visually arresting homage to the heist genre. This one leans into having fun with the idea that sequels always have to be larger in scale. There’s the obvious influence of the Ocean’s Eleven films, but both Mission: Impossible and The Fast and the Furious franchise seep in too. My nephew Timmy and I particularly enjoyed the McGuffinite joke, as Timmy is a big fan of movie and game references in films. Most cinephiles — though perhaps not most nine-year-olds — should be familiar with McGuffin as a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock to describe a mysterious object that exists purely as a plot device. “I liked that it was a reference,” Timmy says. “And it was a perfect name, because it moved the plot forward, which is what a McGuffin is!” While Timmy is very concerned about sharing potential spoilers, the fact that the movie involves going into space is revealed in much of the advertising, and he and Peter really enjoyed this aspect of the film. As Timmy says, “the stakes were higher this time.” While most of the humor is smart and sophisticated, there are the obligatory flatulence jokes one expects in a DreamWorks movie for kids, and Timmy and Peter did find those amusing. Daniel Pemberton’s jazzy score was a treat, and the music was a major selling point for Peter, who loves to bop around in his seat and go down and dance in front of the screen after a movie.
The voice cast is superb once again, anchored by Rockwell’s charismatic performance as Wolf, a charming rogue who committed to going straight but having a tough time with the fact that he can’t get a job due to his criminal past. Rockwell nicely brings an insecurity and earnestness to the character this time around, before Wolf is back in his element, and his ability to bring multiple layers to any character is really at the heart of making The Bad Guys 2 a movie that can keep grownups in the audience engaged and invested in the final outcome. The other really crucial performance comes from Brooks as Kitty, who brings a commanding presence and no small amount of depth to the role. The supporting players bring plenty of laughs, with the interplay between Lyonne and Maron being a major highlight, and the contrast of Bakalova’s adorably sweet voice with the hulking pig makes for a really fun character.
The Bad Guys 2 is easily one of the best sequels of the year so far, justifying its existence by allowing some growth for the characters while telling a story that is entirely self aware in its silliness yet surprisingly easy to get swept up in. It’s the kind of family movie that also works as a date movie, and for me, these lovable thieves just might have stolen the whole summer. —Patrick Gibbs
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