This story contains spoilers. Don’t say we didn’t warn ya.
Hello, Yahoo readers. I’m Suzy Byrne, and I’ve been covering entertainment in this space for over a decade.
I’ll be the first to tell you I’m no hardcore cinema buff. Since I had a child, though, I’ve made it a point to see as many kid-friendly movies as possible. Maybe it’s because I’m a big kid ✔ and love a cheerful ending ✔. But also, as a busy working parent, getting two hours to turn off my phone, put up my feet and eat whatever I want while my child is fully entertained is the definition of movie magic.
So that’s what this is — one entertainment reporter + her 10-year-old child + friends seeing family-friendly fare and replying all to you about the experience. Welcome to Kids’ Movie Club.
Now playing: The Bad Guys 2
Three adults, three kids and one crowd-pleasing movie: talk about the perfect recipe for a summer evening with family and friends.
The Aaron Blabey graphic novel series, on which the animated franchise is based, is a page-turning fave with the kids I took to see the sequel, and the first movie was a howl of a good time, even for the adults.
The sharp-dressed, smooth-talking charmer Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell) gets much of the credit, along with his core crew of sticky-fingered animal friends. We wanted to see if the Bad Guys really could go good — or what their version of “good” even is.
I wondered aloud if that evil hamster from the first film, released in 2022, would be back as we took our seats. “Um, Suzy — it’s a guinea pig,” my friend’s daughter corrected me before schooling me, the clueless adult, about the difference between all the rodents kids demand to bring home after a single visit to Petco. “Sorry, that’s what I mean,” I replied, remembering very well Professor Marmalade’s signature guinea pig chubby cheeks — and sociopathic personality.
The Pierre Perifel and JP Sans-directed sequel — rated PG and running 1 hour, 44 minutes — has a menagerie of new characters and a plot that’s a little all over the place, but we walked out feeling good about it, like we pulled off our own heist, stealing a few hours from our hectic lives for some solid entertainment.
The plot 🎬
The movie begins with how Wolf and crew — also including escapologist Snake (Marc Maron), the master of disguise Shark (Craig Robinson), the muscle Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and hacker extraordinaire Tarantula (Awkwafina) — came together years earlier, during a heist targeting an obnoxious billionaire in Cairo, and the origin of Wolf’s sweet ride, which they speed off in. It jumps five years to when, freshly sprung from the big house, Wolf is driving a beater, which Shark has to push up hills, and none of the ex-cons can find jobs.
Maybe Wolf shouldn’t have applied at the bank he robbed three times, but … desperate times!
The plot bounced a bit too much — they’re at a Mexican wrestling tournament, crashing a wedding to steal a watch from a billionaire, stealing a rocket and going to space and, oh, it’s suddenly raining gold — and there are a bunch of new characters to get to know. With the last film’s chief villain, Marmalade (Richard Ayoade), in jail for much of this, the new nasties are the Bad Girls.
Led by Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks), the girl group copycats the style of the Bad Guys, making the world think the crew has gone bad again. They then strong-arm them into participating in a heist robbing a rare metal, MacGuffinite, to ultimately steal the world’s gold. Kitty Kat uses blackmail as leverage, telling Wolf that she will expose his love interest Governor Diane Foxington’s (Zazie Beetz) criminal past as the Crimson Paw if he doesn’t comply. The Bad Guys get the last laugh.
The commissioner (Alex Borstein) is back doing her same bumbling, stumbling and yet endearing thing. She’s uncertain whether she can trust the Bad Guys, but they build a bond.
There’s also romance of the interspecies variety. “Snakey-cakes” gets charmed by a raven Susan/Doom (Natasha Lyonne), before learning she’s part of Kitty’s gang — and still can’t quit her after. After going round for round, Wolf and Diane get out of the friend zone.
Parts that had the kids talking 👧🏻👧🏻👦🏻
The kids, ranging in age from 8 to 10, were locked in — so much so that I didn’t order my daughter anything, even popcorn, and I didn’t get pestered about it.
The kid crew laughed over Piranha’s gas. Seriously, get that guy to a gastroenterologist. He farted room-clearing green puffs throughout the film, with a flatulence finale in a space suit that nearly suffocated his friend.
Keeping with the lowbrow likes: They also laughed when Piranha was told to “stop farting, you maniac,” and was called a “mango with teeth.” There were also giggles over someone almost having a “pee pee accident.”
After the credits rolled, the kids wondered why there were so many human characters in the movie when the book has all animals as characters. They also talked about Blabey’s spin-off book series, Cat On The Run, which takes place in the same universe as The Bad Guys and how it’s OK, but not at the same level. With The Bad Guys series seemingly done after 20 books, the news that Blabey is launching two new book series is welcome.
The Bad Guys mood continued when we got home. My daughter streamed The Bad Guys: Haunted Heist on Netflix, which we missed when it came out in 2024, and is now rereading the books.
Parts that had the adults talking 👩🏻🙎🏻♂️🙎🏻♂️
The first installment of The Bad Guys had nods to Quentin Tarantino — with its opening diner scene straight out of Pulp Fiction — and the sequel felt just as inspired by classic (and not-so-classic) cinema. As I watched with my husband and our friend, I found myself mentally tallying all the movies and shows it seemed to reference.
For starters, it just generally had the vibes of Ocean’s Eleven and The Fast and the Furious, but with cartoon animals instead of George Clooney. There’s a Silence of the Lambs-inspired scene between the incarcerated Marmalade and Diane, and the Bad Guys’ new jobs — super agents for an intergalactic league — seemed very Men in Black.
I leaned over to my husband during the movie, when the Bad Guys’ getaway car was saved by a giant crane with a magnet, to utter a line from Breaking Bad: “Yeah, bitch. Magnets!” Wolf sipped from a “I see guilty people” mug (The Sixth Sense), and one character yelling, “You lied to me!” made me think of Throw Momma from the Train. The woozy bride took me straight back to Sixteen Candles. Even MacGuffinite traces back to a Hitchcock reference.
I’ve since read that Brooks said she drew inspiration for Kitty Kat from Christoph Waltz’s character in Inglourious Basterds, so the Tarantino love in The Bad Guys lives on.
We also talked about Lyonne killing it. She’s not just busy with Poker Face, but is in Fantastic Four: The First Steps and has voice roles in this and Smurfs this summer.
I also spent a lot of time during the film thinking about how movie seats should be heated. They do it in cars … why not in theaters? I’ve since looked it up and discovered that’s a thing for people who have home screening rooms. I guess I need fancier friends.
Appropriateness 🚽
The movie has good messages — how redemption, if it can be achieved, can change someone’s entire path. Then there’s the importance — and necessity — of friendship. It also had a rather complex theme for a kids’ flick: The challenges faced by those reentering society after incarceration.
In addition to fart jokes and name-calling, there’s stealing, explosions, fight scenes, kidnappings, people getting knocked out by tranquilizer guns and sedated. There are no permanent injuries in most cases, very Looney Tunes, but there’s a lot going on for little watchers. There are also a couple of smooches.
Stay for the credits? 🎞️
Yes — there’s a mid-credit scene involving Marmalade. We learn that he’s been working with Kitty Kat and the girl gang all along — and, oh, he’s an alien. His gold car turns into a spaceship and off he goes — likely to cause more trouble in The Bad Guys 3 if it’s greenlighted, which we imagine it will be.
Trailers 🎥
Wicked: For Good got the kids singing. They knew every word to the titular song in the trailer, having performed it at their school concert, and the countdown is on for November. Our littlest movie friend was excited by the Casper trailer ahead of the film’s rerelease in October for its 30th anniversary.
They also played the trailer for The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants, which I’m already dreading. But with it coming out right before Christmas, timed to school break, I’ll need to fill the time somehow. A sponge living in a pineapple with a snail it will be.
