“Check this one out and enjoy it, because I’ve got a sinking suspicion that we won’t get so lucky a second time with this potential franchise.” –My review of The Bad Guys

Well, folks… guess what?

As with its prequel, The Bad Guys 2 leans into the inherent silliness of its premise. It’s an animated film set in a world where humans are all pathetically stupid, they co-exist with anthropomorphic talking animals, and nobody asks any questions about it. As a reminder, the first movie was about a mad scientist guinea pig (Professor Marmalade, more on him later) trying to take over the world with a mind-control device powered by a meteorite. Without getting too much into spoilers, this movie’s climax revolves around an orbital weapon powered by a fictional material with absurd pseudoscientific properties, and it’s literally called “MacGuffinite.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself. That doesn’t come until the plot actually starts. Before that, we get a heist/car chase that openly defies every law of physics in spectacular fashion. The film wastes no time in letting us know how gleefully, fantastically silly this whole premise is.

I might add that this ridiculously awesome action sequence is a flashback. Which means that if you haven’t seen the first movie, or if it’s been a while since you have, the film graciously brings you up to speed right away.

Long story short, our team of anthropomorphic thieves have spent the past few years trying to go legit. Trouble is, nobody wants to give them a chance because of their extensive and highly public criminal backgrounds. Enter Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks) and her associates (Doom and Petrova, respectively voiced by Natasha Lyonne and Maria Bakalova), three criminals who blackmail the Bad Guys into one last heist. Hilarity ensues.

With this plot and premise, this sequel jettisons huge chunks of the first movie that didn’t work. For one thing, so much of the first movie was caught up in bickering and feuding between our lead characters, most especially Wolf and Snake (both once again respectively voiced by Sam Rockwell and Marc Maron). This time, precisely because all our main characters are in the same boat and united against a common enemy, they’re all more or less on the same page from start to finish and any disagreements/misunderstandings are promptly resolved.

Speaking of which, there aren’t really any betrayals or surprise reveals here. We know right away which characters are sympathetic or unsympathetic, and nobody strays much from those tracks. Compare that to the first movie, in which — despite all efforts to the contrary — it was transparently obvious which characters were going to suddenly turn face or heel. I honestly prefer being right up front about it, rather than wasting our time and insulting our intelligence trying to ignore the blindingly obvious.

For instance, there’s the matter of Governor Diane Foxington (Zasie Beetz). In the first movie, it was a huge reveal that she had a secret past as arguably the most notorious criminal mastermind in recent memory. In the sequel, we already know that Diane is both a powerful elected official and a seasoned criminal. This way, she can hit the ground running and keep on kicking ass right up until the end. Likewise, we’ve already learned that Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade) is an evil genius, so he can spend every second of his precious screentime chewing the scenery with maniacal glee. In both cases, it’s far more satisfying to watch.

But then we have Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein), who turns into something quite different this time around. In the first movie, she was a straightforward bumbling and overzealous blowhard. But this time around, she’s been newly promoted to police commissioner, so now she’s dealing with a lot more political pressure. And suddenly — whether she knows it or wants to believe it — the Bad Guys she’s been chasing after for so long are making a sincere effort at helping her and standing on the right side of the law. The end result is that slowly but surely, Misty gets a sweet little development arc as she learns how to take a chance and trust the Bad Guys. She becomes an embodiment of mainstream society as a whole, with regards to the Bad Guys and humanity’s attitude towards them. All without losing the blockheaded bluster that made her such an effective comic relief in the first place. Nicely done.

Which brings me to the themes. As with the prequel, this movie has a lot to say about the nature of good and evil, whether redemption and change are possible, and how the arbitrary rules and prejudices of greater society impact all of the above. That said, it bears remembering that our last antagonist was a mad scientist hiding behind a socially acceptable veneer of false philanthropy, while this antagonist (that’s Kitty, for those keeping track) is a straightforward crook who’s only out for herself. Kitty never pretends to be anything other than what she is, and she harbors no delusions or hopes of ever changing her nature or being accepted by society. As such, she’s far more effective as a thematic foil to our lead characters. For that matter, she’s even scarier, smarter, more dangerous, and more persuasive than Snake was in the previous film while he was more or less making the exact same points.

The film is explicit in showing how change can be difficult. Even more impressive, the film shows how change is difficult for everyone. Hard enough that Wolf and his friends are trying to change their ways, but they’re having it so much harder because nobody else is willing and/or able to change their worldviews or attitudes in any kind of timely manner. And sure, it sucks that the film doesn’t really have an answer for this beyond keeping patience and constantly working to earn respect, but… well, that’s the truth. And sometimes the truth sucks. That’s life.

Though come to think of it, maybe the film was more implicit in offering solutions. Without getting into spoilers, the film shows the Bad Guys getting rejected by legitimate employers until they work for Kitty, for whom loyalty and friendship are only ever one-way streets. After all the dust has cleared, the ending seems to suggest that the remedy for rejection is to keep searching for the place where one truly belongs and mutually beneficial relationships are possible. Find your people. That’s a nicely empowering message.

So are there any nitpicks? Well, I’m sorry to say that the voice acting is still subpar. The filmmakers are leaning heavily on the beautifully fluid and expressive animation to make up for that. Not to mention the sound mixing — I feel compelled to point out the space shuttle sequence in the climax. In the trailers, the clips for that sequence featured some especially flat voice acting. In the final movie, the shuttle launch is so unbearably loud that the lifeless voice acting is barely audible.

I might add that while the heists are generally quite clever and fast-paced, the nature of the heist genre means that we inevitably get some convoluted fridge logic and plot holes. Sure, the self-aware silliness gives the film a lot of leeway, but not enough. My favorite example concerns the cutaway gag near the end of the climax. That joke is almost — ALMOST — funny enough to distract from the overt act of cowardly cop-out bullshit.

Not that either movie necessarily had to be a masterpiece, but The Bad Guys 2 and its prequel are both too absurd — and too self-aware of their own absurdity — to qualify as truly great cinema. With that important qualifier, the uneven voice acting and bizarre plotting don’t take away from how much fun these movies are. If anything, the sequel doubles down on how over-the-top fun this franchise can be at its full potential. More importantly, I genuinely love how these movies — most especially the sequel — can talk about morality and redemption and other related topics in a way that’s nuanced and honest and layered, yet simple enough for kids and enjoyable for all ages.

We all know that Dreamworks Animation is capable of better — The Wild Robot was proof enough of that — but this is still a good movie nonetheless. Hell, the in-movie recap is robust yet unobtrusive enough that I can recommend the second movie even if you haven’t seen the first. Definitely give it a look.