Review: "The Bad Guys"

DreamWorks Animation released their first CGI Animated movie Antz on October 2nd, 1998. Three years later, they released Shrek (2001), which became the very first Animated Movie to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, and saw three sequels. Since then, DreamWorks Animation has produced more than 40 animated films, both hand-drawn and CGI,  many of them are reaching classic status. On April 22nd of this year, they released their 42nd film: The Bad Guys (2022). Here’s my take on this film:

“Bad Guys,” is the story of a team of five animal criminals: Wolf, Shark, Tarantula, Snake, and Piranha. They live together in a parodied Los Angeles where humans live right along with anthropomorphic animals. One day when caught in the middle of a major heist, the group is arrested, but before the police take them to jail, the “governor” (a talking red fox named Diane Foxington) decides to give them all a chance at redemption by having them go to the home of the town’s philanthropist (a guinea pig named Professor Rupert Marmalade IV.) She believes Marmalade can teach them what it means to be good.

DreamWorks Animation based this film upon The Bad Guys, a children’s graphic novel series, by Aaron Blabey. Blabey explained in an interview with the New York Times that he was “inspired by his love of Quentin Tarantino films and driven by the idea to write a book that could be ‘as exciting as playing an Xbox or watching a movie.’” Blabey published the first “Bad Guys” series in 2015 and the the film is loosely based on the first four.

Not only is “Bad Guys,” a fun movie, it inspires a sense of fun and rebelliousness. Sooner or later, the movie indicates, one has to decide whether or not they will take on responsibility in life…and that can be hard. Fun is had, but work is also meant to be done, and doing good is valuable.

This film is directed by Pierre Perifel, who makes his DreamWorks feature film directorial debut. The film’s voice cast includes Oscar-Winner Sam Rockwell as Wolf, Craig Robinson as Shark, Awkwafina as Tarantula, Marc Meron as Snake, Golden-Globe-Nominee Anthony Ramos as Piranha, Zazie Beetz as Diane Foxington, and Richard Ayoade as Professor Marmalade. The film’s screenplay was written by Etan Cohen who also wrote DreamWorks’s Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa (2008), with additional material by Yoni Brenner and Hilary Winston. The film’s music was scored by Daniel Pemberton, who received a Best Original Score Oscar Nomination for 2020’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, and original author Aaron Blabey was also credited as an Executive Producer on the film.

Overall “Bad Guys,” is a fun and funny movie. I liked it much better than I thought I would because of its clever humor and great characters. I also appreciated how this movie showed that being good means taking on lots of responsibility, but the responsibility is worth-it In comparing this film to Disney/Pixar’s Turning Red (2022), released on March 11th, I would say that “Bad Guys,” is a funnier film but “Turning Red’s,” story (dealing with life’s stress) was easier to connect to personally. Both are exceptional films in their own right!