Movie Review: The Bad Guys 2

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

An excellent animated adventure film. 

This sequel captures all the charm of the first film, while even building on it. This movie has all the same fast paced and wacky energy that is still a compete blast to watch. It also has all the incredibly well executed action scenes that can hold their own with those from live action flicks or anime. The story is once again full of a great sense of adventure and fun one-upmanship between the characters. Speaking of the characters, they are wonderful here. What I love about these characters is that not only are they likable on their own, but they work even better together. The friendships between these characters feel completely real and heartfelt (without ever being mushy or overly sentimental). The comedic interplay between these characters is also a lot of fun and it is a joy to watch them play off each other. This film also does a great job of examining who these characters truly are deep down as they struggle when life after reforming doesn't go as smoothly as they hoped. Watching them struggle with wondering if they truly did the right thing makes for some surprisingly good drama. This is where the movie actually transcends the original. The new characters are also excellent, and this film has a wonderful new trio of villains that have more than a little in common with our heroes. 

While this film has a few laugh out loud moments, I do admit to finding the first film stronger in the humor department. The majority of gags here were more likely to make me smile or chuckle than truly laugh. There was nothing bad about any of these gags (except that one fart joke went on much too long) but it just simply isn't as string in this department as I had hoped. 

This is the second feature film directed by Pierre Pernifel, whose first directorial feature was the first Bad Guys (2022). He however served as an animator on such Dreamworks movies as the first three Kung Fu Panda movies, Shrek Forever After (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012), Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014) and Penguins of Madagascar (2014). His co-director is JP Sans for whom this is his first feature film as a director. He had worked as an animator on such movies as Rio (2011), Rise of the Guardians, Trolls World Tour (2020) (for which he was a supervising animator), The Bad Guys (for which he was head of character animation), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) and Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (2023). 

This is an excellent sequel.