The Bad Guys 2

Once a pioneer and powerhouse in the realm of computer-animated features, DreamWorks has endured for nearly three decades without reinventing itself or throwing away its playbook. The first wave of kids who took to Shrek are now in their thirties, many of them with children currently in the studio’s target demographic. The competition that grew amidst early prosperity now has thinned out. Some promising animation houses never quite caught on and some successful ones have shuttered. There is no longer one studio standing as the clear frontrunner in the field, as even the best of the bunch has proven to be fallible both commercially and creatively.

Buy The Bad Guys 2 from Amazon.com:
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital · Blu-ray + Digital · DVD · 2-Movie Collection DVD · Prime Video

At different times over the years, DreamWorks has felt like a derivative laughingstock, an unrepentant franchise builder, a crass lowbrow comedy factory, and a genuine leader by attendance and acclaim. The studio that at first desperately tried to rival Disney and Pixar eventually carved out its own identity. Even though their stock price took a colossal hit and their distribution model changed repeatedly, DreamWorks is back on steady footing as the more seasoned and productive yet less lucrative animation arm of Comcast NBCUniversal. For the second time in three years, DreamWorks had a genuine contender for this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar. They’ve also continued to generate big global box office numbers, even on franchises that appear to be well past their prime (like Kung Fu Panda). This year’s How to Train Your Dragon proved they could tap into nostalgia and goodwill on live-action remakes. And if it’s done right, next year’s Shrek revival seems poised to profit off those same things.

We’ve all questioned their methods at times, but DreamWorks is still around and still a major player in the big leagues of feature animation. The release of The Bad Guys 2 serves as a milestone. By my count, it is the 50th animated DreamWorks feature. While it took Walt Disney Animation Studios a little over seventy years to boast that big of a canon and Pixar hasn’t even yet hit thirty in their first thirty years of features, DreamWorks has hit fifty in just twenty-seven years. (The number is even slightly higher, if you count the direct-to-video Joseph: King of Dreams or the DreamWorks Animation Television Peacock premiere Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate.) The tortoise may win the race in the end, but as I recall, the hare seems to be relishing that big lead for some time.

Bad Guys 2 is not a sequel that all of the competition would have greenlit so quickly. But DreamWorks has typically preferred to strike while the iron’s hot than wait for inspiration. And the iron is still hot from the original movie, which in the spring of 2022 generated a quarter-billion dollar worldwide gross from an $80 million budget. Not too shabby for a film few would recognize as hailing from an Australian children’s graphic novel series.

The sequel finds its band of reformed anthropomorphic animal criminals — Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), and Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) — struggling to reintegrate themselves back into society. No one will give them a shot at legitimate employment and the gang can’t help but object to being framed for a series of crimes they have not perpetrated. As you probably could have guessed, these bad guys turned good have to reemploy the skills that made them bad to prove they’re good. Or something like that.

The storytelling is a bit convoluted and roundabout, which I believe was in line with the enjoyable first film. France’s Pierre Perifel again directs and Etan Cohen again takes screenplay credit, though this time he shares it with “additional screenplay material” supplier Yoni Brenner. It’s another breezy, stylish diversion whose specifics will not remain with you if you don’t have a kid rewatching this from time to time. Perifel again opts for cartoony, painterly look that distinguishes this from other DreamWorks creations and other CG-animated animal tales. There may not be Zootopia levels of social commentary, but there is enough substance and character development to keep this from being pure gag-driven slapstick escapism. But if you don’t want to think too hard about the hurdles placed in front of reformed criminals or the absurd hiring practices on which the entire world’s economy relies upon, or if you’re too young to recognize and consider such things, then you can totally just turn off your brain and enjoy the high-spirited hijinks.

Playing essentially a lupine Danny Ocean, Rockwell again makes for a charismatic lead voice, which makes one wonder why it took so long for him to turn up in an animated film. Did no one ask prior to DreamWorks casting him in Trolls World Tour?! Many have asked Awkwafina and her answer always seems to be yes, which explains why nearly half of her film credits are cartoon voiceovers. The sequel casts 2020s Supporting Actress Oscar nominees Danielle Brooks and Maria Bakalova as well as Natasha Lyonne as new characters and they’re all fine. This is not a movie that will be trying to win DreamWorks their second Animated Feature Oscar or set the box office aflame (at least not domestically), but it is one that critics and moviegoers should find witty and agreeable. More often than not, that’s all the studio is going for.

Buy The Bad Guys 2 from Amazon.com:
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital · Blu-ray + Digital · DVD · 2-Movie Collection DVD · Prime Video

The Bad Guys 2 in Lists:
The Movies of 2025, Ranked 🐺 DreamWorks Animation, Ranked 🐍 Sam Rockwell, Ranked