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.
What begins as an investigative pursuit eventually turns into a dangerous and wildly spectacular scheme that’s literally out of this world.
While a solid story is key to any film, animated or otherwise, the former also get a huge boost from sharply defined characters voiced by actors adept at delivering trenchant bon mots with superb comic timing. Casting director Christi Soper knows her stuff.
The Bad Guys are voiced by the same actors who handled the first film. Rockwell’s George Clooney-inspired Mr. Wolf is smooth, supremely confident and laden with savoir faire. He’s also the group’s conscience and advocate, during moments of crisis. Rockwell’s exchanges with Beetz, during Mr. Wolf’s amorous encounters with Foxington, are quite charming.
Mr. Shark, while a master of disguise, is quick to panic; Robinson’s frantic apologies, at such moments — “I’m a panicker, I’m a panicker,” he screams, making matters worse — are oddly endearing.
Ramos makes the easily angered Mr. Piranha a feisty, ferocious little warrior: loud and impulsive, sometimes more hindrance than help. He also has an unfortunate tendency to break rather lethal wind during moments of stress.
Maron’s Mr. Snake shifts from sly, adaptable “inside man” to helplessly swooning romantic, when in the presence of new lady love Susan (Natasha Lyonne), a raven with razor-sharp instincts and an even sharper tongue.
Awkwafina is a hoot as Ms. Tarantula, the crew’s genius hacker, who never met an interface that she couldn’t control and/or corrupt; her calm under pressure often means the difference between disaster and escape.
Bornstein deftly navigates Commissioner Luggins’ wild mood swings, as she wobbles between a enraged desire to re-arrest The Bad Guys, and a reluctant willingness to accept Mr. Wolf’s protests of innocence.
Richard Avoade returns as the nefarious Professor Marmalade, the supremely confident guinea pig who was the first film’s chief villain.
I’d love to discuss Danielle Brooks’ equally fine voice work, but even mentioning the character she plays would be too much of a spoiler.
Sight gags abound, from the subtle — Luggins has a coffee mug that reads “I see guilty people” — to broader touches such as the fact that she heads the Super Ultra Crazy Max prison guard patrol. (Say the initials out loud.)
Daniel Pemberton’s rich, cinematic score shares space with velocity-enhancing pop songs that back the story’s deranged action sequences.
The rat-a-tat result is just shy of sensory overload, at a lightning-fast 104 minutes, and I fully expect patrons to return for repeat screenings.
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