BAD GUYS DELIVERS FUN
This visually distinctive, animated film features a stellar cast and a cheeky attitude
A note on cause and effect. If you take your young child to see The Bad Guys — and I heartily recommend that you do — she will one day be watching Pulp Fiction and suddenly recognize the diner in that movie as being the same one from this animated film's opening scene.
If her reactions are the other way around, something is very wrong.
The cheeky Quentin Tarantino shout-out is just one of the joys (delayed in the case of the very young) of watching The Bad Guys, loosely based on a popular series of children's books by Aaron Blabey. They've been adapted by Etan Cohen, whose eclectic screenwriting resumé includes credits on both Tropic Thunder and Madagascar 2.
First-time director Pierre Perifel gives the animation an organic, hand-drawn look that reminded me of some of the great sequences from Spider-man:
Into the Spider-verse. It feels like the dawn of a new style — computer-influenced rather than merely computer-generated. There's an appealing roughness to the images.
The main characters are a gang of thieves voiced by Sam Rockwell (Wolf ), Marc Maron (Snake), Awkwafina (Tarantula), Craig Robinson (Shark) and Anthony Ramos (Piranha). Think Ocean's Five, right down to Rockwell channelling George Clooney. Their criminal activities rely on people's fear, although they do have talent — Shark is said to have stolen the Mona Lisa while disguised as the Mona Lisa.
Their latest scheme is to boost the Golden Dolphin, a philanthropic prize that's been won by a do-gooder guinea pig named Professor Marmalade, with the unmistakable voice of Richard Ayoade. But the plan puts them in the path of newly elected Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), who might be more than a match for them. Wolf's countermeasure: The Bad Guys will pretend to be good guys.
The fast-paced buffoonery takes place in a kind of Zootopia that also includes some humans — Alex Borstein is the police chief, while Canada's Lilly Singh is a news reporter. Best not to dwell too deeply on the human/ animal divide, which seems at best random.
More interesting (to me at least) was the theory of mind at play in the plot. So many characters are presenting one persona to their friends, another to their rivals and (perhaps) a third kept to themselves. It's dizzying fun trying to work out motivations and allegiances, although the writing is sharp enough that all will be clear by the end of the film's 100 minutes.
Then, if viewers are ready, on to Tarantino!