The Bad Guys 2 Review – ‘Compellingly cartoonish animation’

The main joy of self-described “animated caper” The Bad Guys — the 2022 film based on the books of the same name — came in the way it blended Ocean’s Eleven-style heist action with Looney Tunes-style zany physics. As with its predecessor, this sequel builds a moral parable on top of all this, though this time around with a little less pandering to a young audience through childish jokes.

We find Wolf (Sam Rockwell, doing his best Clooney impersonation), Snake (Marc Maron), Tarantula (Awkwafina), Shark (Craig Robinson) and Piranha (Anthony Ramos, working with very little) all struggling to become part of the normal world after doing time in prison. Eviction notices and late bills loom, while job offers seem like a pipe dream. The criminal lifestyle they left behind soon becomes more alluring, especially when the new antagonists pose them the question: why should they try to assimilate into a world that will never trust them?

The difficulties of reintegration is an interesting story-thread for a family-friendly film, and a satisfying follow-up to the first instalment, which lightly gestured at the limits of prison to rehabilitate anyone. These are themes which will fly over the heads of its young audience, but it still stands out, even as The Bad Guys 2 finds rather simplistic answers to the questions it poses. “Respect is earned!” one character insists, in response to another correctly pointing out that some prejudices are hard to overcome.

As in the first, returning director Pierre Perifel leans on the cartoonish fun of gentleman-thief anime Lupin III as a guiding star — you can see it in the way Wolf tries to swim through the air, or in the love/hate relationship between the Bad Guys and the brawny police commissioner. That sense is underlined by the graphic, dynamic stylings of its animation, which makes inventive use of 2D drawings in a 3D space for the odd visual emphasis, special effect or texture.

While the writing can get a little too cute — one of the key items of the film is called ‘MacGuffinite’ — for the most part the comedy is a lot sharper this time around, especially as it works through the rather lovely, anime-inspired visuals. Some simple but punchy cutaway gags break up the more chaotic chases, while the dialogue feels like it makes more of a concerted effort to give the parental audience something to have fun with, despite its continuing insistence on excessive fart jokes. But, as the film itself suggests, rehabilitation takes time and patience.