The Bad Guys 2

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The Bad Guys 2
Starring Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina
Directed by Pierre Perifel

The Bad Guys is a children's novel series written by Aaron Blabey that centers on a group of former bad guy animals who turn good, showing that everyone can change for the better. The first movie was a big hit, and the sequel is pretty much more of the same. It's got great animation, the voice talent is on point, but the story itself is rather stereotypical for heist movies, and in a day and age with more progressive and intelligent children's movies, this feels already like a relic of a bygone era.

After turning good, Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Snake (Marc Maron), Shark (Craig Robinson), Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Tarantula (Awkafina) are trying to find jobs and gain respect, but are still seen as the bad guys wherever they go. Not even Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) - formerly the criminal "Crimson Paw" - can help them gain the respect they deserve. Then they learn of a copycat robber known only as the Phantom Bandit, and Wolf joins with Commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein) to track him down. This results in the bad guys getting kidnapped by the Phantom Bandit, who reveals herself to be Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks) who has her own bad girls - raven Doom (Natasha Lyonne) and wild boar Pigtail Petrova (Maria Bakalova). They offer the former bad guys one last heist under threat of blackmail, and Wolf and company begrudgingly accept - but has their own ideas in mind to catch Kitty Kat and continue to clear their now-good names.

"The Bad Guys" and its sequel are fine in their own right, but don't really move the needle to anything exciting or different. This is essentially "Ocean's Eleven" without George Clooney, but Sam Rockwell does an admirable job mimicking him. He's always twelve steps ahead, and as calm and cool as can be, which gives hope to his friends that he always has an ace up his sleeve. The voice talent is as great as ever, with each actor giving their all into their performances, but ultimately in the end it's just...fine. Nothing terrible nothing memorable, just a perfect middle-of-the-road animated tale that parents will put on to keep their kids entertained while they do house work. There's humor, action, and a decent script although riddled with cliches (the most notable being the former bad guys recruited for "one last job"), but there's not a lot I can find real fault in. Again, it's fine, and if you liked the first you'll like this one, and honestly that's about all I have to say about it.

The Score: B+

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