National Post (National Edition)
A nut not worth cracking
There’s something eerily slimy about Will Arnett’s voice. It’s deep, velvety and rich with texture, sure, but then there’s that sinister undertone — a trait that would make for an excellent villain. But Arnett has always been better as the Loser type, like Gob Bluth in Arrested Development. Arnett nailed the character’s lack of selfawareness about his own idiocy and narcissism. That kind of character arc has a limit, and the actor has since moved on to more mature roles, like his depressive, substance-abusing characters in Netflix’s Flaked and Bojack Horseman.
Arnett also voices kids movies, and it’s an admittedly strange fit. In Nut Job and now the unnecessary sequel, Nutty by Nature, Arnett plays Surly, a lazy, purple squirrel whose buddies — a motley crew of city park animals — scored a lifetime supply of nuts after they managed to shut down a corrupt Mafia-owned nut factory.
Surly doesn’t play by the rules. He wants everything to be easy. Contrasting Surly’s indolence is Andie (Katherine Heigl), a do-gooder squirrel who champions hard work. Andie believes their miraculous food jackpot has made the gang a bunch of lazy, fat rodents. She tries to encourage the youngins to help gather up as many dusty acorns as they can as a backup supply for winter. No one takes Andie seriously. (No one takes the practical woman character seriously? Wow, how utterly shocking!).
Despite Surly’s surliness and laziness, he’s the leader of the pack. It’s hard to understand why Precious the pug (Maya Rudolph), Buddy the rat (Tom Kenny), Mole the mole (Jeff Dunham), and the rest of their rodent friends, look up to Surly, given how mean-spirited he is. This is where Arnett’s voice-acting sticks out: that tinge in Arnett’s voice makes him sound almost a little too cruel. He’s a bad nut, and his less than admirable behaviour is allowed, even celebrated, by his peers. He treats Andie horribly. And the film does very little to acknowledge this or give Andie any moments to put Surly properly in his place.
Nutty By Nature has bigger fish to fry, though, and once trouble arrives, in the form of an explosion, a corrupt mayor and the bulldozing of the animals’ park for a carnival, the team has to put their differences aside and work together to take down the conniving city leader (Bobby Moynihan). Surly, Andie and the crew also find help in a samurai army of Chinatown white-mice, lead by Mr. Feng (Jackie Chan), who is as cute as he is vicious.
With its heavily telegraphed morals and utterly boring plot points, Nut Job 2 is a completely unremarkable tale. It serves kids better than their parents, because children will eat up anything featuring cute and fluffy animal characters. But jokes are few and far between, and the animation does shockingly little to play up the unique physical characteristics of its colourful cast of creatures, (except for a pug named Precious, the most obvious target, because pugs are as cute as they are ugly). The cartoonishly evil mayor lazily represents all the evil that is Trump, but he’s as bland as an unsalted peanut.
While mediocrity in animated films continues to make adults yawn, what should raise an eyebrow in a film like Nut Job 2 is the weird gender dynamic between Surly and Andie. Is there romantic tension, or are they merely competitive? He treats her like crap, so maybe there shouldn’t be a romance? Except, suddenly at some point there is, and how problematic is that? Oh well — a movie as forgettable as Nut Job 2 will quickly disappear into the summer haze.