By Nick Nitkowski 

I remember when the first “Bad Guys” movie came out, my initial thought was, “Oh, great. Another movie is trying to capitalize on the popularity of ‘Zootopia’”. Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that this movie was actually based on a book series of the same name from Scholastic. But after watching it, I thought it was a really fun animated heist movie that poked fun at a lot of the tropes of your typical heist movie, including the multiple twists. I really enjoyed it, but out of all the titles under Dreamworks Animation’s belt, I never would have thought that “The Bad Guys” would be the one to get a sequel, but here we are with “The Bad Guys 2” and I was genuinely interested to see how it is. The only question is, can this franchise steal my heart twice?

“The Bad Guys 2” follows the now Good Guys who are struggling to be honest contributing members of society because of their notorious reputation as the Bad Guys, but when a new crew of Bad Girls show up and force the Good Guys to become Bad again and help them pull off the biggest heist in history, they must find a way to stop it while not besmirching their Good names.

This movie was great. I really enjoyed it. Maybe even more so than the first one. While I did very much enjoy the first one, this new one doubled down on the animation style, the action sequences, and even the humor that had me floored more than once. The energy of this film was infectious, and I was fully on board with this crew’s crazy ride. I was not even remotely board watching this movie because it was so much fun the whole way through.

A lot of the original cast from the first movie returns for the sequel, including Sam Rockwell as Mr. Wolf, Marc Maron as Mr. Snake, Craig Robinson as Mr. Shark, Anthony Ramos as Mr. Piranha, Awkwafina and Ms. Tarantula A.K.A. Webs, and Zazie Beetz as Diane Foxington. We are also introduced to some new characters, including a Raven named Doom voiced by Natasha Lyonne, a boar named Pigtail voiced by Maria Bakalova, and their Snow Leopard leader named Kitty Kat voiced by Danielle Brooks. Everyone among this amazing cast did a great job voicing their characters.

I think what I liked most about this movie, aside from the energy and the fun action, was the dynamic between characters. They work so well off of each other, and they all have great comedic timing. I know that most people are tired of Awkwafina voicing characters in almost every movie, but she was actually tolerable here. She wasn’t as overbearing in this movie as she was in others. There’s one specific dynamic in this movie that I can easily see sparking debate on the Internet. I don’t think it’s a spoiler since it’s featured in one of the trailers for the movie, but just in case, let’s just say that Mr. Snake gets a girlfriend in this movie, and, “Spoiler Alert”, it’s not another snake.  

But the biggest standout of this movie was the animation. Ever since “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”, studios have been getting very experimental and testing new styles of animation for their films. And while this one still has the same style as its predecessor, they do throw in some new stuff. I noticed a few shots when the characters were shocked. They become a 2D anime style image, which works so well. The animation also helps complement the action sequences in such a great way. They even incorporated more hand-to-hand combat. All that being said, I’d say that it’s the animation that made this film fun for me to watch.

Overall, “The Bad Guys 2” was very enjoyable. Any fan of animation is sure to enjoy this new installment. I can easily say that it’s fun for families as both kids and adults can find enjoyment in this film. It provides plenty of humor for both kids and adults. I’ll be honest. Even as an adult, I still laugh at the occasional fart joke. I don’t care if that makes me immature, I’m enjoying my life regardless. The action sequences are great with a high-energy animation style. I would just say as a rule of thumb when it comes to advertising and marketing, even if it is a kids movie, segments and clips pertaining to the third act should probably not be shown in trailers. That’s just a tiny marketing nitpick that didn’t take way from my enjoyment of the film. Should Dreamworks choose to make another one, I’ll be all for another caper like this one because Bad never looked so good!

4 stars