Directed By Pierre Perifel

Starring – Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson

The Plot – The Bad Guys are struggling to find trust and acceptance in their newly minted lives as Good Guys, when they are pulled out of retirement and forced to do “one last job” by an all-female squad of criminals.

Rated PG for action/mild violence, rude humor and adult language.

The Bad Guys 2 | Official Trailer

POSITIVES

While it’s rare in this day and age that an animated property produces two quality installments, and even rarer that the secondary effort surpasses the original, it’s a feeling that constantly lingers within this superior sequel, with nearly every element of the movie’s creativity and production garnering an entertaining engagement that effortlessly feels like the embodiment of Summer blockbuster movie, animated or not. This is a film that could easily rest on the laurels of its original outline, making just enough tweaks to the foundational formula to please the passionate masses, but instead it’s thematically enriched with a reintegration narrative that lifts some solidly compelling social commentary from its exploits, conveying that changing a perception is a lot tougher than morally changing ourselves, especially with the taboo of temptation that makes it easier for this group to retract their own constructive efforts. Because much of the first act pertains to illustrating the difficulties that each of them have in finding a career and stability within their newfound lives, there’s a palpable frustration and established void within the depths of these characters that makes it easier to understand their irresponsible decisions, while simultaneously establishing a conflict in the air of their community, and while the script refuses to ever get heavy handed or subtextual with its social commentary, the ability enacted in them to change for the better does appraise and earnest message to the integrity of the film’s objectives, inscribing a healthy balance between entertaining and insightful that almost always treats its youthful audience with respect. On the entertaining side to that coin, the movie features some of the most ruthlessly exhilarating action set pieces that I have perhaps maybe ever seen in an animated movie, with expressive efforts to the animation and cinematography departments that craft such an enthralling grip to these breathtakingly imaginative sequences. While the script seamlessly follows all of the twists, turns and plodding of a traditional heist movie without feeling even momentarily predictable, so too does the dazzlingly energetic imagery assembled to make one stylistically alluring presentation, with the three-dimensional designs of the animation enhanced with subtle hand-drawn flourishes that inject the action with the kind of kinetic emphasis that effectively attain urgency and vulnerability towards its characters, all the while the photography pertaining to nerve-shattering long-takes, a siesta of side-sweeping angles, and ruthlessly riveting choreography, offers an abundance of limitless artistic ambition that live action movies of the same attitude can’t possibly capture, based on the laws of gravity, flourishing no shortage of stakes and dramatic circumstances to the enjoyment of the audience that makes the 99-minute runtime transpire as effortlessly as movies were meant to do. While the first movie also garnered exceptionally intoxicating imagery to its appeal, the evolutions and elevations here featuring a much more mesmerizingly crisp presentation articulate an obvious superiority over its predecessor, and with a creative variety and conflicting dexterity to what’s presented in environment and objective, it paints an element of unpredictability for a genre that typically refuses to test the discomfort of its youthful audience for even a slight second, in turn allowing it to ride the waves of uncertainty that are paid off immensely with a third act climax aboard an orbiting space rocket that continuously increases the stakes of those involved. For those memorable personalities introduced to us in the first movie, everybody returns to the fray, in order to feed a palpably energetic range to their limitless charisma, and considering this is an ensemble piece first, above all else, the script elicits endless opportunities for each of them to casually shine in the movie’s attentive focus, with the silky smooth essence of Sam Rockwell’s charismatic charms, the eccentric elasticity of Craig Robinson’s vocal contortion, or even the lovesick luster of Marc Maron’s consistency, bringing such an endearing quality to the group’s dynamic. As far as fresh faces go, Danielle Brooks, Maria Bakalova, and Natasha Lyonne are among the series’ new additions as a group of villains with more than a few wild cards to play against The Bad Guys, and while they never steal the focus away from the titular protagonists, they leave more than enough of a lasting impact to the memorability of the movie by testing their male counterparts in ways that continuously attained a surprise factor to their various developments, but beyond that worked wonderfully inside the dimensions of the imagery, which each one of them compliment with exaggerated deliveries that seamlessly blend with what’s asked of them in the imagery, often times eliciting a healthy consistency of laughter that will work for every side of the audience demographic.

NEGATIVES

This film undoubtedly is in the contention for my favorite animated movie of the year, but it isn’t without noteworthy issue, primarily alongside of an inconsistent screenplay that doesn’t always fire on all cylinders. While the film doesn’t feature the same hinderances from its predecessor, mainly in some excessive scenes and sequences that definitely could’ve used another cut inside of the editing room, there are simply so many characters involved that it’s inevitable that an arc or two won’t receive the necessary focus and timing to flourish them out in ways that are wholly satisfying to the audience, and the one that suffers most notably to me here is the developing love between Wolf and Diane, which initially was my most investing angle heading into the film, but here doesn’t quite go anywhere, as a result of the movie separating them quite early in the runtime. While the focus of remaining close to the two battling groups is a responsible take for the movie’s creativity, I couldn’t help but wish that the script would’ve found ways to further this dynamic that could’ve reflected Wolf’s own motives for continuously fighting the good fight, as even in a 99 minute movie, an additional ten minutes or so could’ve gone a long way in balancing the focus distribution to so many character motivations, in turn eliciting a far more gratifying experience for audience members like me, who zero in on the smallest of details that garner the biggest of emotional pay-offs. In addition to this, my only other issue with the film pertained to some of the low-hanging fruit of its comic material reaching so frequently for toilet humor of the most desperately untimed variety. As to where the film had no problems with channeling quite a few laughs out of me, as previously conveyed in the positives, the occasional decision to underwrite its own creativity with material not required out of this level of family film is a bit disappointing, particularly during the climax within the third act, which elicits the same fart joke as many as six times within a matter of a couple minutes. If this is done once or twice throughout the film, I can kind of ignore it in good faith, but it’s tapped into a bit too often to feel harmless, and in a film involving cerebrally subtle gags in everything from clever quips in timely responses to stinging site gags, the bodily blunders serve as the only moments where it feels like screenwriters Etan Cohen and Yoni Brenner lose faith in connecting to their youthful audience, and as a result enact the only moments in the film where I audibly groaned throughout the material.

OVERALL
“The Bad Guys 2” is a criminally superior sequel in every imaginable way, cementing a blockbuster of a Summer engagement aimed primarily at families seeking limitless energy and three-dimensional personalities in its characters. With stunning animation and cinematography seamlessly emulating the look and feel of heist movies of the 70’s, as well as a charmingly charismatic ensemble enacting so much personality and dependable energy to the constructs of their characters, the film is a high-stakes thrill-fest that never relents, proving throughout a dynamic engagement about reintegration that it’s good to be bad.

My Grade: 8.1 or B+