The Bad Guys 2 (2025)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, August 01

PG Running Time: 104 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • From a visual standpoint, The Bad Guys 2 brings a rambunctious energy and some fun animated sequences to the big screen for kids of all ages.

  • Relatively harmless, fans of the first film will find little to dislike here.

  • Great vocal cast, led by Sam Rockwell and new cast members Awkwafina, Danielle Brooks, and Natasha Lyonne.

NO

  • It’s all kind of forgettable. The movie just does what it does, well enough to grab your attention, but then leaves your mind once the credits arrive.

  • Oh please tell me you are not sending characters from this movie into outer space?

  • Heists and criminals and violence all have a place in the film and Bad Guys 2 runs just as much a risk of boring young kids as it does being a little “much” for them to take in.


OUR REVIEW

A somewhat underwhelming summer of movies for 2025 continues with The Bad Guys 2, an animated sequel to a hit movie that few seem to remember - with characters apparently so forgettable we barely even remember they are named after animals.

Show of hands - who here truly remembers The Bad Guys?

Perhaps that is unfair of me. After all, I reviewed the 2022 film and liked it! But even I needed a bit of time to remember that Mr. Wolf (Sam Rockwell) is the leader of a ragtag group of animal thieves who live in a dystopian world where animals and humans walk and talk together. At the end of the first film, the group are thrown in prison. Now reformed, Mr. Wolf and his cohort have flipped from being the proverbial “bad guys” to trying to be the “good guys.” Though that new attitude has not exactly led to Wolf and Snake (Marc Maron), Piranha (Anthony Ramos), Tarantula (Awkwafina), and Shark (Craig Robinson) finding an easy path back to society.

Thankfully, director Pierre Perifel (working with co-director JP Sans) adds in a “Mr. Wolf recap” of the previous happenings and sets the audience up for this new “Good Guys” persona the team is trying on. Soon though, the team is brought back out of retirement at the behest of Governor Foxington (Zazie Beetz) to track down and help apprehend a new villain on the scene - the Phantom Bandit.

As the film settles in and begins telling its story, those who watched the original 2022 film will likely start remembering what made the first film a surprising success. The animation style is full of action, bold colors, and seldom sits still. The dialogue comes fast, the jokes retain a somewhat cynical tone and Daniel Pemberton’s jazz-infused spy caper score does a lot of the heavy lifting throughout the film.

What sets this apart from other animated films is that The Bad Guys 2 has a bit of a different vibe and feel. The screenplay adaptation by Yoni Brenner and Etan Cohen, from Aaron Blabey’s children’s book series, is not really nurturing or kind-hearted, even when the bad guys turn good. The humor feels almost caustic at times, Partly, this is how Rockwell portrays Mr. Wolf and the overall tone the film aims for with bad guys trying to put their “bad ways” behind them.

As “The Bad Guys” try to help the Governor, they become kidnapped by “The Bad Girls,” a female team comprised of team leader - a snow leopard named Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks), and a wild boar known as Pigtail (Maria Bakalova) and a raven named Doom (Natasha Lyonne). Whereas The Bad Guys attempted to steal a luxurious item in the first film to show they could not be defeated, these Bad Girls have higher aspirations.

Space.

And before you can say “Katy Perry is an astronaut,” the Bad Girls have commandeered a rocket ship known as MOON-X, plan to fly it into outer space, connect to a MOON-X supermagnet, and steal all the gold in the world for themselves.

Oh, I should also mention that there’s a character named Mr. Moon (Colin Jost), a character emblematic of a certain billionaire entrepreneur and social media and government disruptor whose name is in the news almost every single day.

In short, there’s a lot happening here. And The Bad Guys 2 doesn’t quite have the same handle on the busy, buzzy spirit the first film had. However, there are indeed some funny moments (a Lucha Libre scene immediately pops to mind) and an energized voice cast puts some vibrancy into everything the directorial team are swirling together.

Darnit though - if it didn’t happen to me again. As of this writing, I saw The Bad Guys 2 four days ago. And I barely remember what happened. That’s a shame because Perifel has truly established a distinctive tone and presentation for these films that should resonate. The cast is having fun, the movie zips along, but, like much of this summer’s output, it becomes a movie that starts to fade from memory as you exit the theater.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Zazie Beetz, Danielle Brooks, Natasha Lyonne, Maria Bakalova, Richard Ayoade, Lilly Singh, Alex Borstein, Colin Jost

Director: Pierre Perifel
Co-Director: JP Sans
Written by: Yoni Brenner, Etan Cohen
Adapted from the children’s book series “The Bad Guys” by Aaron Blabey
Release Date: August 1, 2025
Universal Pictures