The Bad Guys, an animated heist comedy released back in 2022, finally offered parents a way to wean their kids onto Steven Soderbergh and his Ocean’s trilogy. What a gift! It looked snappy in that post-Spider-Verse “3D-made-to-look-like-2D-animation” way, featured Sam Rockwell as a besuited wolf doing a fairly nifty George Clooney impression, and had enough gags to keep the whole thing moving at a pleasant pace. And this sequel, greenlit off the back of a hefty haul of $250m at the box office, nearly sends us right back to that feeling.
The Bad Guys 2 has just enough wit and spirit that you can take your kids to see it without feeling like you’re doing a disservice to their intellectual development. It even, in fact, looks better than its predecessor, since directors Pierre Perifel and JP Sans’s animation team have pushed the physicality of their zoological crew of thieves-turned-heroes – Rockwell’s Mr Wolf, Mr Snake (Marc Maron), Mr Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr Piranha (Anthony Ramos), and Ms Tarantula (Awkwafina) – in a way that wisely and happily borrows from the jerky but imaginative realm of anime.
