The Bad Guys
The famed children's book series comes to life in a razor sharp animated piece that will hold parents' attention, as well as that of their kids.
Wolf (Sam Rockwell) runs a crew of Bad Guys, including Snake (Marc Maron), Tarantula (Awkwafina), Shark (Craig Robinson) and Piranha (Anthony Ramos). When one of their heists goes awry, however, they convince mayor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) to give them a shot at reformation. Working with Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade), a renowned humanitarian, they try and go good - only to discover a nefarious plot that they must use their full skillset, good and bad, to waylay.
Aussie author Aaron Blabey has written a number of books in this children’s series, all around the idea of a Tarantino-esque crew of animals doing heists for kids. The film taps into that great idea of an anti-hero, going so far as to deliver an even better and more accurate interpretation of that genre than many of the live action adult attempts of late.
The piece is aided by a stacked voice cast (Rockwell in particular is fantastic), a visual identity that emphasizes the ‘cool’ factor of the characters, and a runtime that doesn’t overstay its welcome. What that all adds up to is a fun, fizzy and entertaining spectacle that will appeal to audiences of all ages. For the kids, there’s lots of jokes, colours, cute animal characters, and a sense of ‘cool’ pervading the whole thing. For the adults, the plays on classic crime movie tropes, and the paciness of the whole thing will make this an easy one to watch too.
Ultimately, what sets this apart is that these characters still feel like bad guys. Unlike other attempts like Venom, Deadpool or Morbius, which have just retconned bad guys into being good guys, here we see an unapologetically bad crew of people, who find a reason to do good things, without losing that sense of who they are. Even in a kids movie, that’s refreshing.
