25. The Bad Guys
Immediately, I feel the need to disclose once again that there are 50 of these films so there WILL be some overlap. Even though these bottom 25 ended up being the bottom 25 it doesn’t mean I think all of them are bad movies. Absolutely not. Granted, this film would have been a lot lower had I not decided to do this list.
The Bad Guys is a film that really benefited from a second watch.
Full disclosure, when I first saw this film I thought it was just okay. For someone like me who has seen a lot of films, the premise of a group of bad guys who are good at being bad and eventually become good is an age old tale at this point and I felt, and still feel, that the narrative the film incorporates doesn’t do a lot to differentiate it from those other ones. The most I can say in its favor as far as how different it feels is in its style and the fact that the friction is carried by the dynamic of the group rather than in just a single individual.
I didn’t really care about it that much when I first saw it. I had heard it was a fantastic film so I went in with expectations that were supremely high and came out of it feeling as though I must have missed something important.
The typical nature of the story and the two twists that I predicted near the very beginning of the film left me feeling rather disappointed after all the hype.
Then, I left the movie alone for a bit and came back to it for this list and I’m very grateful that I did.
This movie is actually pretty good.
I think the reason this film benefits so much from a rewatch if you’re someone like me is that when watching it again, knowing the twists and knowing what it was going for beforehand, I was able to appreciate all the other stuff about it that I didn’t give the correct amount of attention before. There’s a lot to be said about how a film can tell a simple story but stand out with an outstanding amount of atmosphere and an incredible use of music.
The film begins in a way that’s way cooler and more impressive than I remembered, with two of our main bad guys, Wolf (Sam Rockwell) and Snake (Marc Maron), just talking to each other in a diner. The casual conversation they have is funny because the reaction they get from the people around them is the polar opposite of their current mood.
The characters and the dialogue are solid. They’re all designed really well, they’re acted really well, and the heists and the way they’re presented do give off the feel of a child friendly Lupin the 3rd.
One thing I did notice the first time I watched but didn’t heap nearly enough praise onto before was the animation. Namely, the style of the movie coupled with the animation is where this film truly shines. It is the absolute best thing about it. It looks extremely fluid and cool with that almost 80s anime flourish reminiscent of said bygone era. It looks like the kind of stylized cartoon that I’ve wanted to see from 3D animated films for a long time now.
Spider-Verse kicked off this trend and every film that comes after utilizes the same techniques to boost itself an entire letter grade. The same old tired look of the Illumination films with the Minions just doesn't cut it anymore.
The second thing I failed to acknowledge before was the music. The music is very inspired. From the needle drop choices to the original background tracks to the original song they sing in the middle of the film. It’s radiating an old time jazz beat that exudes confidence and style. It’s basically pelting you across the face with how slick and cool it is.
As a work of art, this is definitely a well crafted film. Unfortunately, despite finding a new love and passion for what it is, I do find that the originality in some of the story-telling departments it ventures into holds it back. Despite being fun, it’s still just a little too simple for me, personally.
I think that’s largely due to the most predictable of the two twists and, for me, the worst part of this film; the villain.
Professor Marmalade, played gleefully by Richard Ayoade, is another one of those twist villains that everyone hates seeing in films nowadays. I usually don’t have a problem with them so long as they’re entertaining and their villainy being a twist actually enhances the story in a cool way.
However, this isn’t like Coco where everything gets turned on its head and the trepidation meter rises to 11. I saw this coming a mile away and the only thing it really does is get the Bad Guys put away like they were originally going to be at the beginning of the film.
It seems like it was widely just a vehicle for the others to have cute scenes of character development and attempts at being good, which was necessary, but due to it being in service of this boring villain’s stale plot, it feels a little like it’s going through the motions.
The cop lady, Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein) was a fun enough addition though she could get to be a little much in some places. There is a thin line between being a fun antagonist and being an antagonist that gets in the way of the fun. She almost crossed it but never quite does, thankfully.
The Bad Guys are the Good Guys now and yet, somehow, there’s going to be a Bad Guys 2. Are they going to go back to being The Bad Guys in a story so tragic it’ll make the kids cry or is it going to be like Despicable Me where Gru turns from a villain into a slightly grumpy, vindictive neighbor? I suppose we’ll see but the idea that it could go beyond something as generic as what they did to Mr. Minions is hard to imagine, unfortunately. At the very least, it’ll do what it does with the style and grace that those movies could only wish they had.
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5 months, 1 week ago
09 Mar 2025 02:40 CET
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