The Bad Guys 2 Review
This sequel retains alot of the fun zappiness of the original, but never quite touches the former film’s highs.
The Bad Guys have gone good! But Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Shark (Craig Robinson), Tarantula (Awkwafina) and Piranha (Anthony Ramos) are all having a hard time adjusting, particularly when the world doesn’t trust them. The only one happy seems to be Snake (Marc Maron), who is up to some suspiciously chill activities. That is, until Wolf decides to team up with Commissioner Luggins (Alex Borstein) to find a new mysterious burglar and make the world trust him again. But can the Bad Guys outsmart this new foe? And what happens when this foe frames them, making them villains in the eyes of the world once again?
The Bad Guys was such a fun film, bringing a fresh and zippy take on a kids film that gave it a little taste of adult humour and fun. And while a lot of that is replicated here, the film never shakes the feeling that it isn’t quite as novel, nor quite as sharp, as its predecessor.
There are plenty of fun new characters added here, in particularl a sly double crossing bird, and the sequences are still plenty of fun. In fact, the early Cairo-set sequence is an absolute blast; the core group finding their feet and executing a crazy heist while bantering away, in perfect Bad Guys fashion. It’s just a shame that the rest of the film gets bogged down along the way.
Perhaps that’s because this film has to do more heavy lifting. The first film had a clear arc for these characters - Bad Guys go Good - but here, we open with the Bad Guys already good! They have to go from Good, to Bad-ish, to back to Good again, and that arc is a little less satisfying.
The relationship between Wolf and Diane Foxington is fleshed out more thoroughly and in quite fun ways, and sort of forms a highlight of the film. Snake is a lot of fun here as well. The wedding sequence is an absolute blast, and reminiscent of what this film can be when its not bogged down in sequences like Wolf interviewing for jobs, and not shot into space like the final sequence of the piece.
In the end, though, there’s enough to love about this movie as an adult to make you grateful for a second. The world is expanded a little bit, and the final sequence takes it a bit far, but ultimately when this squad is grounded and doing what it does best, it is an absolute blast. And that’s not to mention the core audience for this, the kids, who will undoubtedly continue to love the gang as they save the world with their crime skills, as so many kids in the audience of our screening seemed to.
