The Bad Guys (2022)

The Bad Guys (2022)

 

5/10

Starring the voices of

Sam Rockwell

Marc Maron

Awkwafina

Craig Robinson

Anthony Ramos

Richard Ayoade

 

Directed by Pierre Perifel

 

After the many good reviews, I am disappointed by what the final animation delivers. I have been spoiled by Disney to expect a good story and not just impressive animation. Based on a children’s book of the same name, I think this should have been a direct-to-video job, not a theatrical release. It was not worth the extra time.

The movie’s initial setup can be confusing, and they didn’t even make any effort to correct it. Were the animal group being avoided because they were animals, or was it because they were predators? I didn’t know. Then there was the mayor, who was a fox, and foxes, from what I know, are predators. She was liked, so the initial start had me confused. I had this at the back of my mind as the movie developed. I also wondered, “Is it because they were known criminals that people avoided them at first?” If that was the case, then why are the police hunting for them when they seem to move about freely at some points? I later gave up on that thought and decided to watch the movie, hoping to enjoy myself.

Here is an animation set in a world where humans and animals live together. The animals are anthropomorphic. The Bad Guys are a group of predator animals who have committed some high-end robberies in the town and have always eluded the police.

During a planned heist, their leader, Mr. Wolf, gets a good feeling that messes up his focus, and the group gets caught. It turns out these bad guys are all bad because no one has shown them they could also feel good about themselves by being good, which is an idea the movie wanted to convey.

Here comes philanthropist guinea pig Dr. Marmalade, who says he can reform these animals and asks for them to be released into his custody so he can change them. Mr. Wolf, who initiates this idea, has a plan of his own to use this means to steal the Golden Dolphin Trophy award, a heist that has never been done before. The group is released into Marmalade’s custody, and we soon see that for most of them, they were a lost cause. Down the line, a big heist is being planned by an unsuspected villain, and the group is being arranged to take the fall. How the group falls into this trap and how they manage to escape in the end, and whether they change their ways, is what the movie has planned for you.

As stories go, this movie just falls below what I expected, and I feel they could have done better with the plans and setup.