Les Bad Guys

This is fun light hearted animation. The story is entertaining and adorable at times. The humor is to my liking: even though some jokes are predictable, they're still well placed and executed well. I personally enjoyed the art style combining 3D animation with comic style 2D drawings. Kudos to the animators, the faces of the characters were very expressive.

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!

Initially I sat down to watch the 2022 animated movie "The Bad Guys" with very little expectation. Why? Well, because I wasn't sure what I was getting into here, aside from it being an animated movie that my son wanted to watch. But with it being an animated movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to watch it with my son.

I will say that writers Etan Cohen, Yoni Brenner and Hilary Winston actually put together a good storyline. Now, I am not familiar with the books that the movie is based on, so how true it is to the source material, I cannot tell you. But I found the storyline in "The Bad Guys" to actually be well-written and enjoyable, as well as being entertaining.

The character gallery is what worked so well for me here. I really took a liking to the characters in the story right away, and they are as colorful as they are memorable. Not only did they manage to paint a gallery of interesting characters, but they definitely also had a great voice acting cast ensemble to bring the characters to life.

The animation and art style used in director Pierre Perifel's 2022 animated movie "The Bad Guys" was good. I liked the drawing and art style quite a lot, as it was very dynamic, and had a slight comic book feel to it.

The voice cast in "The Bad Guys" was nicely cast with some great voice actors on the cast list, with the likes of Awkwafina, Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos and more.

If you enjoy animted movies, then you certainly should sit down to watch "The Bad Guys". I was genuinely entertained by this animated movie, and it one that I will warmly recommend.

My rating of "The Bad Guys" lands on a seven out of ten stars.

Low expectations were what I had when the trailer first appeared on my phone screen. I wasn't even interested to watch it 'till the end. I would roll my eyes on the animation style, it's not eye-catching nor it is impressive.

But damnnnnnnn! I wasn't expecting it to be good. It's a feature animated film filled with genuine laughter, comical characters and an above the par plot.

The caper team consists of Wolf, Tarantula, Piranha, Snake and Shark, all of which play a different archetype from one another. This team of 5 is evil and yet, you might find that their personalities are very likable, charming and even approachable. This is the heart of the film, the element that keeps the audience entertained aside from its narrative.

Ocean's 8 meets Zootopia, this is what The Bad Guys is. You may find the first heist somewhat similar to the all-women Ocean's. There's the restrooms, kitchen tray trolleys, red-carpet staircases, hackings (pretty much every heist film), red laser traps, all of which resemble strongly with the mega heist of the Met Gala in the said film. I found TBG better than Zootopia, which I PERSONALLY found it to be overrated. However, those who love Zootopia will also enjoy TBG as it implies similitude to it.

Running for over 100 minutes, The Bad Guys never stops with its steady pacing, putting audience in an enjoyable ride from start until the end.

Lo and behold, you wouldn't expect how many twists they are in this. It's a plot twist on top of another plot twist. Just when you thought, there you go, they have revealed all the twists, the film comes in with another unexpected twist , showing that you have also been deceived by The Bad Guys. When you look back at it, it's amazing that all the twists don't come as a force, but rather it oozes naturally, making it a perfect fit to the whole story.

The animation style is better than what I had visualized in my mind. Looking at the trailer, I thought it was mehh, but the pencil-like motion drawings got better as time went on. It took a bit of time to adjust but eventually, I liked it.

On the other side of the cell, I believe that TBG should offer a larger team than mere 5 animals. It would have been so much fun, exciting and the stakes would be even higher!

All the animal outlaws are excellent however, I must say, I'm a little disappointed with their back stories, because there is almost none to begin with. They did introduce each member in the beginning, but I wanted to know where all of them came from, how they can coexist and walk the earth with humans, and how the group was formed in the first place. I know, I'm aware this is an animated film but what a solid story they could have to an already excellent plot.

Rounding up, The Bad Guys is definitely in my top 5 films of 2022 as we almost end the quarter of the year. Let's see what the future has in store for animated films!

Verdict: If there is one thing The Bad Guys taught us, it's to never judge a film by its trailer.

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.