The Bad Guys

Great characters, some real LOL moments, and a nice, fun and cohesive story. Great animation and sound. It felt a little long for 100 mins, probably due to the predictability, although there was a fun twist.

I completely agree with the first reviewer: I had low expectation after seeing the trailer, too. But "The Bad Guys" turned out to be a very clever movie, well-made, with a sophisticated script, and fast-moving. Most importantly: It's not taking itself too seriously. I mean: A shark as a master of disguise!?

I don't know (yet) the books on which this movie is based. Oviously the story is also inspired by the various Ocean's 8/ 11/ 12/ whatever-movies, but it is definitely an over-the-top-version of these caper movies. These movies always tried to be believable; "the bad guys" tries to be fun. And it succeeded in that!

So, it looks to me that the Bad Guys was influenced by the anime Lupin the third. Makes perfect sense, so many animated movies and series are. Sam Rockwell's Big Bad Wolf is a total play on this. Although I did notice that Disney's Seeing Red has a similar look so it looks like anime is getting even more intergraded in everything. I'm good with it!

The actual story is by the numbers. These animated features love the idea of teaching children to think outside the box and rising above what the world thinks you are, in a movie that's story arch could not have been more obvious if they tried, but that animation was so good that I'm too focus on it to care.

It's a good ensemble cast of characters. The Wolf, the Shark, the Tarantula (Played by Awkafina, a fav in this movie, just really cute), the Parana, and the Snake. It was a good crew and it's kind of great how the character and the voices all gel together.

But really, I can't stop talking about the animation. Its realty worth it to watch things unfold. Lots of good kinetic energy, the moving pictures never slow down and consistently lively throughout. Flawless.

Thumbs up.

This one, as another reviewer has already said , has wonderfully written characters (obviously - written and performed). It's not original - I couldn't care less - once again: originality as is, is overrated in my personal book. So despite obvious similarities with Zootopia I still enjoyed it wholeheartedly. Some of the plot twists can be spotted miles ahead - it doesn't matter. Once we got to know and like these lovely characters we just want to see the story through and know how it all ended for them. Only problem is - most of the climax of the movie doesn't really make sense. Or to put it simply, think it out carefully and you'll realize - it couldn't happen the way the movie explains it. I'd give it 10 stars if it was making sense. And then again - it's not as important as it could be in other movies.

Must add some words regarding the cast. They're all wonderful but I can't avoid special mention for Sam Rockwell, it's not the first time I see him but I can promise from now on - I'll make it my business to notice him; Marc Maron is also superb as snake; Zazie Beetz is always unforgettable, and she does it again, and the exact same thing can be said of Awkwafina.

To some it all up - if you don't have a special agenda against fun movies - you'll love this one.

I'll be honest, The Bad Guys is far from masterpieces like Pixar's Up, Wall-E, and the plot is rather predictable. But who am I kidding, almost all animations are predictable since they're made for kids so that shouldn't be a problem, as long as they're enjoyable. Fortunately for The Bad Guys, now I wouldn't say the movie 'nailed it', but it turned out to be pretty decent.

So the main characters are really likeable (pretty cute I would say), the voice acting is great (Sam Rockwell is wonderful, his voice is just so magnetic. Beetz's Diane is wonderful too.) Wolf and Fox have an amazing chemistry (I love the pair), and the characters' interactions are executed rather well, the storytelling pace is smooth and the motives are clear and believable, so there won't be any scenes that feel off, forced or awkward (Except for the opening car chase, that part is over the top, that I agree with Foxinton. And personally I hate this 'talking to viewers' thing, movies should be immersive! 'Show, not tell.' Isn't that what you writers prefer?) (I do like the opening scene though, kinda like Pulp Fiction, but in a reletively-terribly-written way. But I don't blame the writers for this, I mean, they're not Quentin, are they? It's just an animation.) Hats off to the writer/director, they've done a great job on this.

Now what I like most about The Bad Guys is that it doesn't try to give a lecture, it doesn't try to convey any messages (not anything big or meaningful at least, heh.) Disney and Pixar would be like 'Ohh! We should add messages into animations, we should teach kids about what's right and wrong, we should use animations as a way to express our political beliefs.' No, The Bad Guys just tries to entertain people, and it did rather well. I'm not saying that I hate messages in an animation, I love meaningful and educational animations, but only when the story is great. It seems to me that some animations focus on 'the big message' so much that they forget the fact that a well-written story should come first. No matter how true or how important your message is, nobody would like your animation if the story is bad. The Bad Guys does a good job on this by not giving any lecture. It knows what it is, it knows it can't be as good as animations like Inside Out, which is both entertaining and educational, so it chooses to only entertain. And judging by the result, it really did a good job.