The Bad Guys Review: Going Good
The Bad Guys
Director: Pierre Perifel
9
The Bad Guys is Universal Pictures’ take on bad guys turning good. Based on a series of children books, you can see the morals shine through the story. While super predictable, it is funny enough to be enjoyable.
The Bad Guys is worth watching if you belong to a younger audience. It contains some static characters that provide some entertaining moments, but the plot is so see-through, it can be tough to not look ahead. The beginning felt long, and I didn’t feel the humour over-powered the ‘G’ aspects of this movie.
Who Stars in The Bad Guys?
The Bad Guys contains a daily extensive cast for an animated movie. Headlined by Sam Rockwell as Wolf and Marc Maron as Snake, The Bad Guys had two characters that stuck out to me instantly. As a massive Brooklyn Nine-Nine fan, I recognized Doug Judy (Craig Robinson) immediately.
His role of Shark is another that isn’t directly in the spotlight, but he performs wonderfully. We also get a MCU reference here with Awkwafina as Tarantula. You can check out our review of my favourite role of hers, Shang-Chi, here! The role of Tarantula was very fitting for Awkwafina, with a bunch of quips and one liners that add to the comedy.
What Books are The Bad Guys based on?
The Bad Guys is directly based on the series written by Australian author, Aaron Blabey. There is a total of 14 small novels that cover different adventures undertaken by our gang. While I haven’t read any of them, Scholastics Canada recommends them for Grades 2-5, the same age ranges that I would put this movie into. I have attached a listing from Indigo for the first 5 books in you are interested!
The Bad Guys Review
Coming into The Bad Guys, I was not sure what to expect. It looked funny. It looked pleasant. It also looked like it could be the most predictable story ever. I was correct to assume all three of those things. The characters are funny, enjoyable, and relatable. They cover the big 3 of family movie characters, but they bring a little bit of an extra spice. Our deeper character list gives more content to pull from and really extends the story. Our main 5 do experience some type of character development, but the other main characters are very flat. Time isn’t wasted developing characters that don’t matter to the plot, and I thought that was a really beneficial choice. You aren’t watching this to see a secondary character all the sudden get a conscience or become a villain or something, so why waste dollars and time on it.
The plot itself went exactly as my mind saw it going. The Bad Guys feels cheesy and cliche, while being a lot of fun to watch. If you are able to turn this into a popcorn movie and turn the brain off, it is actually quite enjoyable. The plot being so predictable did allow for me to finally be right when making predictions, which for anyone that watches the Youtube Channel, hint hint, is a rare thing.
It’s funny, the characters are fun, and the plot is simple. The confusing part to me was the plot holes that kept popping up. I couldn’t wrap my mind around why some animals were talking, and the random guinea pigs weren’t. Also, why did the ratio of people to animals seem so small, yet the governor was a fox. The references suggested that maybe Wolf was the same Wolf in about 15 fairy tales, but we didn’t ever dive into that connection. Lots of maybes, and a lot less certainty with underlying details about the world The Bad Guys exist within.
Those questions might be a little bit too in-depth for a children’s movie to cover, but it opens the story on why this doesn’t translate as well to an older audience. There are a few references to things only only audiences are going to clue into, but they aren’t enough to make it worth a watch. A movie like Cars, catch our review here , holds value to a variety of different audiences, and it holds so much rewatch value as a result. The Bad Guys feels like a movie that might struggle to draw adult audiences that don’t love animation films. I really enjoyed it, but I would recommend waiting until this hits streaming if you are unsure.
