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The other night I got out and saw Dreamworks’s newest animated movie The Bad Guys. I was really excited for this one, the trailers looked pretty great but I was honestly a little disappointed. Dreamworld dropped the ball on The Bad Guys, hopefully the next Dreamworks movie will be better. Most of the good jokes were in the trailers and even though I liked the message they seemed to miss the mark on it and made it seem like being a little bad is still good. But what’s most disappointing is how stupid it treats the audience. I know this is for kids but kids aren’t stupid, they don’t get enough credit for what they can understand. Every single twist can be seen very early on, I found myself very sarcastically saying “oh that happened, who would have guessed?” But on to the good. What jokes that weren’t in the trailer were decent and they had a few good surprises that made me laugh hard. The art style is so fun and anyone that hates the art of Turning Red but likes this, we now know what they really didn’t like about it. Sam Rockwell’s Wolf is a really fun character that a lot of people will be able to like. Marc Maron does a good job with his super predictable character and manages to make me keep liking him. Awkwafina is such a delight as always. Her character deserved some more time. Craig Robinson is easily the funniest character of the group and most of the highlights come from his Shark. Anthony Ramos is really good here and gets a great musical moment. Zazie Beetz is great as the Fox who did provide the only shock that I didn’t see until right before it happened. Alex Borstein has a good character that’s a little unutilized. I think the message of “it feels good to be good” is a good one for kids to hear but then they go and muddy the water on the message. I think The Bad Guys is a good family watch but not worth a theater trip. You’ll like it way more when it’s streaming and you can watch it comfortably at home. I’m giving it a 6/10, it hurts me to do but I was so disappointed. I think this had some great potential and could have been so much better. I’m really curious to hear what you think of it, was it disappointing as well, or did you enjoy it? -Tyler.
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A crew of larcenous supervillains is foiled during their biggest heist attempt yet. In an effort to avoid incarceration, Wolf (Rockwell) convinces the mayor to allow his crew to try and reform in exchange for their freedom.
The Bad Guys takes a similar approach towards villainy as similar animated offerings Megamind and Despicable Me. It shows the baddies experiencing subtle shifts in ideology until they ultimately break for good. But The Bad Guys accomplishes this worn convention by trading entertaining subtleties with incessant preachiness. For every fun and inventive action scene there is a scene of characters pontificating about the nature of good and evil. And while I have no ideological gripes with the film’s messaging, it is presented in such a clunky and condescending way that I could not help but feel annoyance at its unending scolding.
This overall lack of nuance bleeds into every other aspect of the film and the big twists are obvious from the start of the film. I was reminded of some of the big reveals in Megamind which, unlike The Bad Guys, really surprised and excited me. The humor also dipped too often into the puerile for my tastes with, as just one example, a character’s villainous skill of noxious flatulence. On the other hand, there are some genuinely funny moments, mostly courtesy of Craig Robinson’s Shark, that gave me a chuckle.
The Bad Guys is not all bad and it is almost worth seeing for its absolutely stunning animation. The style is unique, vibrant, colorful, and textured. It clearly emulates the technological animated advancements featured in Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse and it does so with gorgeous flair. The character design is beautiful and the action scenes are beautifully choreographed and executed. The opening car chase scene is immensely enjoyable as are really any of the action scenes which entertain with kinetic exuberance.
The voice work is also very good with Sam Rockwell, Zazie Beets, Craig Robinson, Mark Maron, Awkwafina, Richard Ayoade, and Alex Bornstein, breathing life into their animated avatars. But I did find it very odd that a world populated entirely by humans had seemingly no issues with the seven talking animals that manipulate them from scene to scene. The Bad Guys, apart from its beautiful visuals, is a bad film. It talks down to and generally scolds its audience, features an obvious story, and exchanges clever witticisms for scatalgocial inanities. I had hoped for more, but felt that these villains had stolen something valuable from me: my time.
Hot take: All I kept thinking about was how much better Megamind is and how it’s a real shame that nobody seems to have seen that movie.
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