The Bad Guys
review by Bobby Blakey

Dreamworks has a long line of great animated features including How To Train Your Dragon and Shrek franchises. Their latest film The Bad Guys based on the New York Times best-selling book series features a great voice cast including Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh and Alex Borstein with director Pierre Perifel at the helm. Could this film manage to steal the hearts of audiences or will it forever be stuck on their bad side?
The Bad Guys follows a crackerjack criminal crew of animal outlaws who are about to attempt their most challenging con yet—becoming model citizens. Never have there been five friends as infamous as The Bad Guys—dashing pickpocket Mr. Wolf, seen-it-all safecracker Mr. Snake, chill master-of-disguise Mr. Shark, short-fused “muscle” Mr. Piranha and sharp-tongued expert hacker Ms. Tarantula, aka “Webs.” But when, after years of countless heists and being the world’s most-wanted villains, the gang is finally caught, Mr. Wolf brokers a deal (that he has no intention of keeping) to save them all from prison: The Bad Guys will go good. Under the tutelage of their mentor Professor Marmalade, an arrogant (but adorable!) guinea pig, The Bad Guys set out to fool the world that they’ve been transformed. Along the way, though, Mr. Wolf begins to suspect that doing good for real may give him what he’s always secretly longed for: acceptance. So when a new villain threatens the city, can Mr. Wolf persuade the rest of the gang to become … The Good Guys?
I’ve really dug the trailer for this film, but admit that I wasn’t sure how I was feeling about the animation style. After finally seeing it all my doubts went out the window about the animation and anything else because this film is just
great. The story is simple and pretty much what it advertises with a few twists, but nothing that’s overly surprising. Despite that it offers up so much fun, action, heart and laughs that you can’t help but love it and have a great time.
I love all the characters and their looks. Each bring their own unique fun to it all and have great chemistry that balances and compliments all of their insanity. The voice work is great with everyone bringing some great fun and memorable personas to each role. The animation style stands out to perfection and really makes this film unique and awesome all around. The attention to detail is nothing new these days, but it still impressive down to things as simple as a little seatbelt in the car for Tarantula and one characters mouth and subtle tongue movements with their speaking style.
Right out the gate it kicks things off with a great car chase set up sequence that is worth the whole film alone, but have no fear there are plenty of great perfectly shot animated moments throughout. Every action piece is better than the next and goes all in to bring a visual feast of the senses that I can’t imagine everyone would not love.
I had a blast with this film and loved it so much more than I thought I would. Sure its an animated film that I am gushing over, but it is one that will work for everyone and I hope this isn’t the last we see of the Bad Guys.
In addition to the film this release offers up bonus content including deleted scenes, commentary, featurettes, the short “Maraschino Ruby” and more. Grab your copy of The Bad Guys available now on digital, 4K, Blu-ray and DVD from Universal Home Entertainment.