With the success, both box office and storytelling-wise, of the 2022 animated release The Bad Guys, a sequel was always going to be inevitable. Now that that moment has arrived, what are the end results? The charm of the first is mostly intact, but the storyline has been ramped up to the stratosphere, well, outer space, actually.
All the main voice actors and their characters have returned, and we get three new additions. The Bad Girls, made up of Doom (AKA Susan), voiced by Natasha Lyonne, Pigtail Petrova (Maria Bakalova) and the ring leader Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks). The arrival of the three happens mid-film and deprives the audience of an in-depth backstory.
The Bad Guys have now gone good, and with job prospects being nonexistent for ex-criminals, they are struggling to make ends meet. In the midst of all this, they are framed for a crime they didn’t commit and are forced back into the life. The story from this point on just gets more and more outlandish and eventually ends up in outer space.
Relying on the establishment of the characters and their appeal from the first film and putting almost all the onscreen effort into the new storyline leaves little further development to their ways. The set pieces are extravagant and spectacular, and the action never trails off. The appeal of the opening round has been somewhat muted with this approach. It’s still entertaining, but just not as memorable.
Rob Hudson
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