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The Bad Guys Shuns its’ Most Promising Themes, But Looks Great Doing So


The Bad Guys has the artistry of a really good animated movie but not the aspirations. Such is the case for a lot of big budget animated films these days not coming from the Mouse, but especially for DreamWorks, which hasn’t produced something truly interesting or ambitious since it stopped making How to Train Your Dragon movies. Instead it consistently resigns itself to the mediocre, chasing Sony or Illumination like it once chased Disney. The Bad Guys however does have its’ own Disney DNA, its’ ideas and general character seemingly cribbed a lot from Zootopia (some of these are fairly general themes and aesthetics, but DreamWorks does have a history of mimicking more successful studios’ creative choices). But the thing is, it remains in that shadow by choice, and in fact in spite of the suggestions of something more original and different that frequently appear. A microcosm of DreamWorks itself perhaps, both struggling to break out on its own but content to stick in its’ formulas.
Much of the exciting potential is rooted in what the film was sold as, what got me in the theatre: a wacky animated heist movie. And to be fair, it is sparingly this very thing. Its’ premise concerns a gang of anthropomorphic animals vilified by general society (who apart from two other characters are the only anthropomorphic animals in this universe). Literally called ‘the Bad Guys’ they’re a notorious criminal crew who pull off grand capers and delight in their foul reputation. It’s not a bad set-up, and the movie introduces this cast of miscreants well in a really great opening sequence that efficiently communicates their personalities (stock though they may be) while also showing off the animation’s slick yet manic energy in a ridiculous bombastic car chase sequence through central Los Angeles (it also includes a none too shabby homage to Pulp Fiction –amusingly now the stuff of kids’ movies). The heists themselves, modeled explicitly on Soderbergh’s Ocean’s movies, are about as well constructed as any pastiche –which is to say none too creative or clever, but with enough of the necessary cool affects in place. And there are some good jokes that arise in this.
However, each time the movie returns to a heist after the initial job in its’ first act, it’s to diminishing returns –most of the strongest ideas are utilized in that first sequence and its’ too saddled by a dreary rehabilitation plot afterwards. See, after the big con is a bust, the Bad Guys enter into a rehab program to become Good Guys as merely a front to pull the same heist off for real once their image has been cleaned. But of course their leader Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell) actually wants to go good after accidentally discovering altruistic fulfillment, and this becomes the centrepiece of the movie’s progression. It’s a fairly weak and general motivator, too blandly reductive even for a kids’ movie, and the script is clearly aware of this as it tries to throw in other themes that never fully land. Occasionally, the prejudices that these characters face as particular animals is brought up, but the film is never bold enough to interrogate that idea succinctly the way Zootopia did -I think out of DreamWorks’ fears of being read as political. It searches instead for a deeper reasoning behind Wolf’s desire to be good but never brings up anything beyond grade school platitudes of generosity and selflessness. The only thread that has any meaningful weight and that should have been the films’ more primary focus is the relationship between Wolf and Snake (Marc Maron), his best friend and pseudo-ideological mirror. The end of the movie devotes significant time to this, but doesn’t build to it effectively despite the chemistry between the two characters.
And they are the characters who gel the most and offer the greatest promise. Though Rockwell is mostly doing just a sly Clooney impression (one that is lampshaded by the movie), he’s good at it -Wolf is cool. And Maron’s Snake is a great curmudgeonly devil, a Moe Szyslak kind of character who lands those beats of deprecation really well. Otherwise the cast is mostly flat. Awkwafina is just literally doing her character from Ocean’s 8 but as a spider, Anthony Ramos plays a Piranha who has little defining features beyond anxiety flatulence, and Craig Robinson’s Shark, though he makes for an amusing model, is largely the standard doofus. Wolf’s upstanding governor love interest, a fox voiced by Zazie Beetz, serves the role of a foil and obligatory feeble girlboss, while the even less-inspired guinea pig philanthropist voiced by Richard Ayoade, plays his cute routine on the sidelines while you wait for him to inevitably be revealed as the villain.
But the one area where the movie is demonstrably and unequivocally excellent is the animation. It’s a very different style to anything DreamWorks has done before, in its’ own way mimicking that hand-drawn/CG blend of recent Sony Animation movies, but with a more specifically frenzied energy applied that seems directly inspired by classic Warner Bros. cartoons. Its’ visual slapstick isn’t often as funny but it has that same pacing, that same expressiveness which gives it a lot of character. The designs are so smooth and yet the characters move within the exaggerated contours of this world with ease, it’s thrilling to see that work up on the screen. The film was directed by Pierre Perifel, whose been a DreamWorks lifer since about 2008 but prior to that worked on interesting European animations like Nocturna and The Illusionist. And I think he brings that outsider experience to the detail of The Bad Guys, the aesthetic sharpness that compliments the silliness, the real love for the fluidity of animation. And it makes the movie for all its’ faults, a treat to look at, even if Snake’s teeth frequently alternate nonsensically between molars and fangs.
I don’t think its’ enough to redeem that mediocrity in everything else, but it does soften it -make it easier to take while the movie is still substantively disappointing. I’d like to see DreamWorks do more animation like this, though at the same time I would hope that they could innovate and experiment themselves for a change instead of just chasing the trends of other successful animation houses. It would also be nice if the storytelling grew along with the animation, doing away with those most tired thematic and comedy crutches that have made the studio brand a joke in recent years. With nothing on the horizon for DreamWorks but further franchise tie-ins though, such hopes are probably still very premature.

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