The Bad Guys

Last night I spontaneously decided to see The Bad Guys (there aren't many new releases this weekend) and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  A crew of notorious criminals made up of anthropomorphic animals known for being scary to humans, including Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), and Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos), attempt to steal a valuable trophy being presented to a philanthropist guinea pig named Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade) by the governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) but they are caught by the overzealous human chief of police (Alex Borstein) who has been pursuing them for years.  Professor Marmalade convinces the governor that he can reform them by the time of his charity gala and she promises them a pardon if he succeeds.  Mr. Wolf agrees to the proposal, telling his crew that they will only be pretending to be good to get the pardon and to have another crack at stealing the trophy.  However, Mr. Wolf starts to like being one of the good guys and some of the heroes start acting like bad guys.  Chaos ensues.  The story gets a bit bogged down in the second act but I think the emphasis on each animal's defining characteristic is really clever, particularly when the tarantula (a computer hacker) uses all eight of her legs to type on different keyboards.  The voice cast is outstanding and I liked the look of the animation because it is very stylized with both 2D and 3D images.  The action sequences are a lot of fun, especially a high-speed chase after a bank robbery and an elaborate escape from prison, and the message that you shouldn't judge someone based on their appearance is a good one.  As with most animated features geared for children, there are a lot of references that adults are sure to find very amusing (lots of nods to other heist movies).  This is a highly entertaining movie and I recommend it for both children and adults.