This madcap adventure is even more fun and crazed than its 2022 predecessor.
Director Pierre Perifel definitely knows how to pace an animated action comedy, and he has ample support here from co-director JP Sans, elevated from his previous role as head of character animation for the first film.
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| The Bad Guys — Mr. Wolf, Mr. Shark, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha and Ms. Tarantula — triumphantly confront the owner of the prized item they're about to steal. |
As before, this romp takes place in an alternate universe with humans existing alongside anthropomorphized animals, where an oversized shark can successfully impersonate a man half his size. (It’s all in the costume and attitude, donchaknow.)
Rather than open precisely where the previous film concluded, we first get a flashback prologue that shows our quintet of bestial baddies — Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina) — operating at their larcenous best, stealing a one-of-a-kind sportscar from a vain gazillionaire’s heavily guarded mansion.
The resulting vehicular pursuit — totally breathless — showcases Jesse Averna’s imaginative smash-cut editing.
Back in the present day, however, the former Bad Guys — having gone straight as the first film concluded — are finding it impossible to obtain gainful employment, since everybody associates them with their larcenous past. The only bright spot is Gov. Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz), who helped secure the group’s freedom, and now maintains an arm’s-length flirty relation with Mr. Wolf.
The world still doesn’t know that Foxington formerly was an elusive master thief known as The Crimson Paw.
Local law enforcement — headed by the anger-prone Police Commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Bornstein) — is baffled by a series of high-profile burglaries conducted by an elusive and never-seen culprit. The most troubling detail is that this mysterious individual has been using some of the distraction gimmicks once employed by The Bad Guys ... which turns Luggins’ attention to them.
Realizing it’s in their best interest to help identify the actual criminal, Mr. Wolf employs his detail-oriented observational skills to suss out the likely next target for theft; he realizes that all stolen objects were made of a precious metal dubbed MacGuffinite (and there’s a sly joke for long-time movie buffs).
Alas, in an increasingly complex escapade laden with double, triple and even quadruple-crosses, things often aren’t what they seem. Except when they sometimes are.
