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The Bad Guys


The Bad Guys
2022's The Bad Guys is a splashy and fast-paced animated feature from Dreamworks that drifts into Disney Pixar territory with middling results, but does provide pretty consistent entertainment.

The title characters are a group of career criminals led by Wolf (voiced by Oscar winner Sam Rockwell), who calls the shots for Snake (voiced by Marc Maron), Shark (voiced by Craig Robinson), Tarantula (voiced by Awkwafina), and Pirahna (voiced by Anthony Ramos). The gang's plant to steal an important award is thwarted by Governor Foxington (voiced Zazie Beetz), who instead of having the guys arrested, gives them a chance to redeem themselves by going to rehab in an effort to become good, but even that good, but even that doesn't go as planned.

The story is further complicated by Wolf's plan for another job, which gets hopelessly mangled up in his conscience when he discovers something within himself that really wants to become good, causing him to betray his friends, but bringing him a lot closer to the Governor, who has a secret or two of her own.

The screenplay by Etan Cohen (Holmes & Watson) is based on a series of books by Aaron Blabey, which might explain the overly complex story that plays like a Disney Pixar feature. The film starts off very cleverly, coming off like an animated homage to the Ocean's 11 franchise as they try to steal the Golden Dragon, but the story really slows down when Wolf has crisis of conscience and during the final third, we get way too many plot twists to keep straight, but we love the characters so much at this point that we try to latch onto what we can and hope that it all comes together at one point.

The story also looks into the natural order of animals in history and literature when Wolf pontificates about how wolves are always the bad guys in fairy tales and that explains why he is who he is today. Animals and their natural enemies are also challenged in the possible romance between Wolf and Governor Foxington. The story never lets us forget it's 2022 either. There is an adorable scene of Wolf saving a kitten from a tree that Wolf wants to downplay, but Professor Marmelade immediately pulls out his phone to show Wolf how many likes his good deed is getting.

The film features terrific voice work, with standout work from Rockwell, Awkefina, Ramos, Beetz, Alex Borstein as Police Chief Misty Loggins, and especially Marc Maron as Snake. The plot gets a little busier than it needs too, but there is fun to be had here.