5 days ago
Forget Smurfs, take your children to see Bad Guys 2 this summer
The perfect heist shouldn't be limited by pesky logistics. In theory, then, it's something animated characters can pull off better than anyone. Your Clooneys, Cruises, Pitts or Bullocks may have a bunch of swanky capers studding their résumés, but the opening sequence of The Bad Guys 2 out-dazzles them all.
Out in time for the summer holidays, this sequel to DreamWorks' 2022 hit about a quintet of animal outlaws will make kids feel cool and parents cool for taking them. It starts with a flashback to the good old days – by which it means, the bad old days, when this now-reformed gang of five (a wolf, a tarantula, a shark, a piranha and a snake) were unrepentant criminals.
A head-spinning car chase through Cairo – after the heroes have glitter-bombed the palace of a rich sultan – is a spiffing showcase for the visual style, which uses computer animation (fusing 2D and 3D) to look as hand-drawn as the filmmakers can pretend. As a yahooing Mr Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell to sound eerily like Clooney) makes his getaway with the crew, we really kick into gear. The animation style is a Hanna-Barbera/Looney Tunes throwback, a comic book being sped up and slowed down. It's frisky and inspired.
There's a plot, too, which is a good deal less sluggish than Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, while also being almost needlessly intricate if you decide to bother following it. (Basic version: a gold-lusting trio called The Bad Girls lure our heroes into one last job, and they fall for the ruse.)
There's really no need to over-concentrate, though. We're in this for the set pieces, the razzle-dazzle, and anarchic comeback vibes, backed up with muscle by Daniel Pemberton's music (of Ocean's 8 fame). We accept the esprit de corps between these creatures, all much-maligned figures in the animal kingdom, and the gambit that they're good guys deep down. We still want to watch them do bad things.
Craig Robinson's Mr Shark is nominally a master of disguise – somehow no one sees through it, even when he's donning a moustache and wig to pose as an Italian florist, say. The script defaults to easy running gags of this ilk (Mr Piranha emits toxic green gas when he's nervous). This is the weak spot: coarse material it knows kids will lap up.
It isn't wrong. It just misses the verbal wit of, say, a Brad Bird (who wrote and directed The Incredibles and Ratatouille) to seduce the rest of us with devil-may-care suavity. Even so, anyone interested in animation needs to pay attention to what these films are doing. The writing formula may be crude, but the whiz-bang aesthetic is sensational.
