The Bad Guys 2: Animated mayhem

The Bad Guys 2 (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.3.25 

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.

 

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.

The script, by Yoni Brenner and Etan Cohen — once again drawing from Australian author Aaron Blabey’s popular children’s graphic novel series — contains the same blend of visual slapstick and subtly sly adult humor. (As co-producer Diane Ross suggests, in the production notes, the goal is an homage to complex heist films, with a soupçon of Quentin Tarantino.)

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.

My Spy the Eternal City: Family-friendly spyjinks

My Spy the Eternal City (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for action violence, brief profanity and ill-advised teen behavior

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

This film’s 2020 predecessor was one of the better entries in the odd little sub-genre that places macho action stars into light-hearted romps with children.

 

While Bobbi (Kristen Schaal, left) nervously awaits the worst, JJ (Dave Bautista)
reluctantly allows Sophie (Chloe Coleman) to pursue the bad guys ... while placing
too much faith in her insistence that she "knows how to drive."

Acknowledging that — and seeing no reason to change a winning hand — director Peter Segal and co-writers Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber have reunited with the original cast for another stunt-laden dose of spyjinks.

Although this sequel also can’t be taken seriously, the plot is a reasonable anchor point for droll character interactions and — as was the case with the first film — the solid dynamic between co-stars Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman. Once again, their rapport feels reasonably authentic, and they’ve grown comfortably into their roles.

 

Four years have passed, since the events in the previous film. Former ace CIA operative JJ (Bautista) has transitioned into a desk job, in order to lead a more peaceful life with Kate (Lara Babalola), while also becoming a more attentive parent to her daughter Sophie (Coleman). Alas, now a teenager, the last thing this girl wants is a helicopter stepfather who constantly gets into her business.

 

Sophie’s focus is on hunky fellow high school choir member Ryan (Billy Barratt), much to the dismay of her best friend, Collin (Taeho K), who has long worshiped her from afar. Alas, Sophie takes Collin entirely for granted.

 

Elsewhere, CIA section chief David Kim (Ken Jeong) is horrified to discover that a crucial op has failed, thereby placing the locations of 100 nukes into the hands of enemy terrorists. 

 

Back at North Virginia High School, the choir has been selected — along with numerous other youthful choruses from the States and around the world — for an international competition that will climax with a massive performance for the Pope, in Vatican City. To Sophie’s horror, JJ eagerly volunteers to be one of the chaperones; this prompts nothing but derision from the head chaperone: rule-oriented school principal Nancy (Anna Faris), who doesn’t think he could possibly handle the responsibility.

 

Indeed, the first night in Venice is almost a disaster, when the kids break curfew. But the quick-thinking JJ saves the situation, which raises his cred — a bit — with his youthful charges. Unfortunately, things subsequently go awry when JJ unwisely allows Sophie, Ryan and Collin some “fun time” one evening.

 

At which point, Collin gets kidnapped.

Dolemite Is My Name: Far out, man!

Dolemite Is My Name (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, and you'd better believe it, for nudity, crude sexual content and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.1.20

We love to learn about unlikely Hollywood success stories; they fuel Tinseltown’s image as the land of dreams and magic.

Writer/director Robert Rodriguez made his feature film debut, 1992’s El Mariachi, on a budget of only $7,000 (!) … half of which he raised via stipends earned as a participant in experimental clinical drug trials.

If clothes truly make the impersonation, Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) must decide
whether his outfit is flashy enough to persuade a nightclub audience that he's a
streetwise pimp.

Steven Spielberg was only 17 when he began working as an unpaid clerical assistant in the Universal Studios editing department in the summer of 1964; four years later, his first professional short subject, Ambin’, impressed studio vice president Sidney Sheinberg enough to offer Spielberg a seven-year directing contract.

Rudy Ray Moore’s saga belongs in their company.

His unlikely career is profiled — more or less accurately — in Dolemite Is My Name, an unapologetically raucous and profane biographical comedy/drama from director Craig Brewer. The Netflix original boasts an impressively nuanced performance from star Eddie Murphy: an on-the-nose casting choice, given that — like Moore — he’s also an industry Comeback Kid, having risen from the ashes of his own imprudent career decisions.

Moore and his “Dolemite” persona are likely to be recognized or remembered only by cinema buffs who devoured 1970s blaxploitation flicks. As with the concurrent kung fu phase, many (most?) such films were made on microscopic budgets, and typified by shoddy special effects, clumsy scripting and atrocious acting. Fans couldn’t have cared less; such guerilla filmmaking inevitably came with an anti-establishment attitude and visceral degree of energy that made them, well, fun.

(If only in the sense of guilty pleasures.)

Scripters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski don’t shy from the eyebrow-raising coarseness of Moore’s personality, which is to be commended; there’s really no other way to depict his unlikely career with anything approaching authenticity. Murphy, in turn, radiates the charisma and unrelenting — often foolish — persistence with which Moore pursued his improbable dreams.

Murphy also isn’t afraid to embrace Moore’s physical limitations, including the pot belly that made him the world’s least likely film star.

But that comes later.

Table 19: Book elsewhere

Table 19 (2017) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity, drug use, sexual candor and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang

Wedding guests often receive inconsequential little favors: tchotchkes that may draw a smile or two in the moment, but are quickly forgotten.

This movie is just such an item.

The misfits at Table 19 wonder what they've done, to be abandoned in the wedding
reception's far corner: clockwise from left, Bina and Jerry Kemp (Lisa Kudrow and Craig
Robinson), "Nanny Jo" (June Squibb), Walter Thimple (Stephen Merchant), Rezno
Eckberg (Tony Revolori) and Eloise McGarry (Anna Kendrick).

Filmmaking brothers Jay and Mark Duplass are known for modest, character-driven comedies — such as Baghead and Jeff, Who Lives at Home — that feature eccentric folks who don’t quite inhabit the real world. They’re somewhat familiar, in a that-quiet-guy-next-door manner, but you’d probably avoid them in a social situation.

Table 19, alas, is so insubstantial that it would blow away during a soft breeze. The premise is droll but cramped, barely able to drag its way through a mercifully short 85 minutes. Indeed, the film pretty much runs out of gas after the first act, leaving its cast adrift in uncharted waters.

Maybe that’s why the Duplass boys, who generally helm their own material, farmed this one off to director Jeffrey Blitz. Who, to be fair, does the best with what he’s got. Individual moments of Table 19 are quite funny — co-star Stephen Merchant is hilarious throughout — and the core plotline builds to a an unexpectedly poignant conclusion.

But the film too frequently struggles and flounders through awkward silences, much like the half-dozen strangers thrust together at the “misfit table” during a wedding reception that pretty much ignores them.

Until the last moment, Eloise (Anna Kendrick) was the maid of honor for best friend Francie (Rya Meyers), eagerly helping with all wedding and reception details. Eloise also was in a steady relationship with Francie’s brother, Teddy (Wyatt Russell), serving as best man. But that was then; after being dumped by Teddy — via text, no less — Eloise was relieved of her duties and transformed into an instant persona non grata.

(Which, just in passing, seems shallow on Francie’s part ... just as it seems weird that the best man would be her brother. But I digress.)

Defiantly determined to attend the blessed event anyway, Eloise duly arrives to find herself consigned to the Siberia of reception regions: the dread, distant corner Table 19.

Get On Up: An artistic downer

Get On Up (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, drug use, violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang 

Rarely has a strong starring performance been sabotaged so thoroughly by a film’s core structure.

During what begins as a casual chat following a successful concert performance, Bobby
(Nelsan Ellis, right) makes the mistake of sharing some of his own musical dreams with
longtime friend and colleague James Brown (Chadwick Boseman). Big mistake: Of all
people, Bobby should have known that in Brown's world, there's only room for one ego.

Chadwick Boseman impressed us last year with his dignified, finely shaded portrayal of baseball great Jackie Robinson, in 42. Boseman is simply amazing here, as “godfather of soul” James Brown: the voice; the earthy charisma; the electrifying, bone-defying dance moves; and most particularly the soul-shattered instability. It’s a performance for the ages.

Too bad it’s buried in such a clumsy and maladroit package.

One generally blames the director for the totally of a film; he is, after all, the guy who signs off on every take, oversees the editing and assembly of words, images and music. I’m reluctant to do so in this case, because Tate Taylor certainly deserves credit for coaxing such a galvanic performance from Boseman ... and, to only a slightly lesser degree, from the equally talented Nelsan Ellis, just a memorable in a supporting role as Brown’s longtime friend and musical colleague, Bobby Byrd.

Taylor, after all, guided Octavia Spencer to an Academy Award for her fine work in The Help, a thoroughly absorbing adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s book, which also garnered a Best Picture nod and acting nominations for Viola Davis and Jessica Chastain. The man clearly knows how to elicit the best from his actors.

On the other hand, Taylor obviously didn’t recognize the serious deficiencies in this biographical portrait. Censure more deservedly goes to scripters Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Steven Baigelman, for the bewildering and off-putting manner in which they’ve chosen to tell Brown’s story.

The film begins very poorly, and you’ll likely want to bolt during the distasteful and downright weird prologue: an incident from late in Brown’s career, when mental demons have transformed him into an unstable, potentially dangerous lunatic. This sequence is “expanded” from a real-life meltdown that led to his arrest in September 1988, and six-year jail term (of which he served three years).

But absent any context, it’s impossible to view this scene as anything but disrespectful: a thoroughly unpalatable introduction to a man who meant so much to the music world. It’s also not one of Boseman’s better moments; he’s not able to sell Brown’s volatility in a way that enhances the drama. Even much later, when the narrative has come full circle to better explain this sequence — and its aftermath — we remain unsatisfied.

Of all the places to begin this drama, Taylor went with that one?

This Is the End: Out with a whimper

This Is the End (2013) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: R, and quite generously, for pervasive profanity and drug use, violence, gore, relentless crude and sexual content, and impressively graphic nudity (not all of it human)
By Derrick Bang

The devoutly religious are certain to disagree, but this tiresome vanity production is too stupid to be blasphemous.

After Emma Watson re-thinks her ill-advised decision to place her safety in the hands of
half a dozen self-centered horn dogs, she mounts an escape with the help of a handy
axe. Unfortunately, this may be a classic case of leaping from the frying pan and
directly into the fire...

It’s relentlessly vulgar, however, in the arrested adolescent manner that we’ve come to expect when Seth Rogen, James Franco and their homies assemble for “something fun.” In this case, the “fun” comes from playing themselves — no stretch there, since most have been doing that all along — and behaving badly when God proves that the Book of Revelations wasn’t mere biblical filler.

Like so many of today’s limp-noodle, man-boy comedies, This Is the End stretches a mildly amusing concept far beyond the average viewer’s patience. Actually, we know this to be true, since this film is “expanded” from a 9-minute 2007 short titled Jay and Seth Versus the Apocalypse. Honestly, beefing up the cast and adding another 98 minutes (!) did nothing to improve the material.

Although Rogen and Evan Goldberg uncork an impressively apocalyptic third act — they collaboratively wrote and directed this case study in wasted celluloid — one must wade through nearly an hour of tedious, contrived and self-indulgent “banter” in order to get there.

Riffing the stoner culture may have been novel and slightly daring when Cheech & Chong made Up in Smoke way back in 1978, but I’d like to think film comedy has progressed a bit since then. Rogen and Goldberg apparently didn’t get that message, since they clearly believe that merely showing a baggie of weed is enough to prompt a belly laugh.

By the same toke(n), it’s time to declare a moratorium on the faux homoeroticism that seems to pass for “cool” among some of today’s Hollywood types. When Rogen and his fellow “reality stars” aren’t chortling over how blasted they’ve gotten, they trade barbed comments apparently intended to demonstrate their hip, quasi-gayness, while nonetheless retreating to safer hetero territory whenever the tone threatens to become emasculating.

“Safer territory,” in turn, emerges in strained one-liners that make sport of bodily functions: the sort of lowest-common-denominator crudeness that once remained the province of little boys trading bad words behind the woodshed, but now has become something of a badge of pride among today’s lazy comedy writers. It’s apparently shorthand for rugged manhood.

This overworked 21st century cliché hits low ebb here during an ejaculation exchange — merely verbal, I’m happy to report — between James Franco and Danny McBride, which goes on and on and on and on. Constant Companion and I exchanged glances, and the unspoken message was obvious: Seriously? This is what film comedy has descended to?