Wolf, Snake, Shark, Piranha, and Tarantula Reassemble as The Good Guys
DIRECTOR: PIERRE PERIFER, JP SANS (CO-DIRECTOR)/2025
Can a bad guy become a good guy? It’s not as easy as the the Bad Guys expected.
Though they went straight at the end of 2022’s The Bad Guys, the world still doesn’t trust the gang of former thieves. Even with an endorsement from Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), no one will hire Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell, great as always), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), or Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina). As their temptation to turn back to crime grows, someone beats them to it: the Phantom Bandit. When several artifacts made of MacGuffinte go missing, the Bad Guys are framed, and they’ll need to use their special skills to clear their names.
I’ve said before the most difficult movies to review are ones like The Bad Guys 2—that is, movies that perfectly fine. The animation does find ways to innovate, sometimes switching its colorful palette to two-dimensions moments of heightened action, and parents may find some chuckles along the way thanks to Shark’s disguises or Snake’s new romance with avian hippie Doom (Natasha Lyonne). But just because its writers take inspiration from Reservoir Dogs and Rockwell’s Wolf takes after George Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven doesn’t mean there can’t be fart jokes! No surprise: The kids in my screening laughed the loudest at those moments, while their chauffeurs probably appreciated that crude humor stayed in the backseat.
I don’t expect much depth or originality from an animated romp targeted at young children, and still both The Bad Guys movies have broken my brain. The original sent my colleague Max Foizey into a tailspin about its worldview, fearing kids might leave with the idea morality is determined by what makes you feel good. It’s hard to fight him on it when the intended message (Sharing is fun!) was so muddled by confusing world building. Take the role of guinea pigs in this fantastical society. In the first film…
- Guinea pig Professor Rupert Marmalade IV (Richard Ayoade, returning for the sequel) is a wealthy philanthropist who turns out to be a villain, subverting their culture’s expectations of what guinea pigs are capable of.
- Laboratories use guinea pigs as test subjects. Protestors (including humans) gather outside of a Los Angeles lab, though the guinea pigs don’t seem to be aware of their situation because they don’t share Professor Marmalade’s sentience.
- Snake openly discusses how delicious guinea pigs are, and it’s part of his meet-cute with Doom on a public bus in this film. He is only ever considered a criminal because of the robberies, not because he eats other animals.
Ay yi yi yi yi—it’s one thing for an animated family film to defy the laws of physics, but it’s another to defy logic by A) hiring Maria Bakalova to play a swine named Pigtail, and B) setting an escape inside a food truck selling beef and chorizo hot dogs. The implications of cannibalism may be lost on young viewers, but won’t they notice our anthropomorphic antiheroes have a pet cat who can’t speak? With these confusing mechanics and all of the plot it stuffs in, it’s no surprise any ideas about generosity feel half-developed.