The Bad Guys 2 begins with a heist in Cairo, Egypt, five years prior, where we see how Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell) acquired his trademark black car. In the present day and after the events of the first film, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), and Ms. Tarantula/Webs (Awkwafina) all struggle to find jobs. They’ve all gone good and no longer pull off heists, but have recently been rumored to have gone bad again because a new thief known as the Phantom Bandit is framing them at every scene of the crime. Meanwhile, Mr. Snake (Marc Maron) is suspiciously happy, relaxed, and barely around.
Mr. Wolf and his friends are roped into one final job by a snow leopard named Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks) and her team, consisting of a Bulgarian wild boar engineer named Pigtail (Maria Bakalova) and a sarcastically deceitful raven named Doom (Natasha Lyonne). This new group of female criminals has dirt on current mayor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), and Wolf will do everything he can to keep her safe, even if it means going back to prison.
The Bad Guys had killer animation and an incredible voice cast, but the issue was that the film was massively predictable, even if you didn’t read the books. The chemistry amongst the cast drove the film, but the humor was so-so. The animation was an incredible blend of 2D and 3D animation, and while the film’s style had similarities with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, visually, no other animated film looked like it.
As a sequel, The Bad Guys 2 expands on just about everything the original film did. While the animation is the same style, it explores vast new territories, whereas even something as simple as a car chase feels more impressive. The Cairo opening of the film (which is also Webs’s first job) features a car chase between The Bad Guys and what appears to be the entire Cairo police force. The chase includes driving on walls, releasing a bunch of caged chickens, driving in reverse in a roundabout, and the entire police force having to all ride on one motorcycle because all of their other vehicles were destroyed.
The animated heist comedy sequel also has big moments in a lucha libre wrestling ring and even travels to space for a massive finale. The lucha libre material allows for so much fluorescent and dramatic lighting, which results in some really eye-catching visuals between hydraulic bouncing low-riders and dynamic character introductions. Going to space allows typical physics to not be an element anymore, which sees anti-gravity enter the picture. Mr. Piranha’s nervous flatulence is taken to Rocketman (the 1997 Harland Williams movie) extremes, and it’s great.
The sequence where Mr. Wolf and his buddies jump onto the MoonX rocket that has already launched is crazy and feels like something ripped straight out of one of the Mission: Impossible films. It moves at an accelerated pace, the gang has to think fast and use all of their animal attributes to stay on the rocket as its many sections keep falling into the atmosphere, and the sequence amplifies what is already a thrilling and inventive use of camera perspectives.
The humor in the film feels way more adult this time around, too, especially when it comes to Mr. Snake’s new romance with his girlfriend, Susan. When they kiss, Snake tries to swallow her entire head, which is already disturbing. But there’s a lock-picking sequence where Mr. Snake is describing what he’s doing, and it’s blatant innuendo.
Mr. Wolf drives a hatchback car (like a Toyota Tercel) in the present day that smokes, sputters, and is on its last legs. The gang is broke now, with a constant barrage of eviction and past due notices arriving daily. As Mr. Wolf is parking before a job interview, someone drives past him and calls him a jackass. This is a completely fair term when donkeys are probably a part of this anthropomorphic world somewhere, but it's not the friendliest term for a family film.
A frustrating aspect of the film is that The Bad Guys have to prove themselves yet again. They went good and had this big production of Professor Marmalade’s (Richard Ayoade) downfall. So the fact that they have to do it all over again is a bit redundant. The sequel does a solid job of portraying why Mr. Wolf and his friends could be The Bad Guys again to the public eye, but it’s lame how quickly everyone turns on them.
The Bad Guys 2 is bigger, badder, and funnier than its predecessor. The gags are wilder and more creative, the jokes land and make you laugh, and the new characters are just as intriguing as the familiar ones. Unique locations in the film allow the animation to construct some of the most visually impressive and charismatically animated sequences of the year, as well. Being a good guy has never felt so rewarding and entertaining.
