The Bad Guys (2022)
Directed by Pierre Perifel
When the Bad Guys, a crew of criminal animals, are finally caught after years of heists and being the world’s most-wanted villains, Mr. Wolf brokers a deal to save them all from prison.
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50 films that influenced The Bad Guys
What critics say influenced The Bad Guys
The heist sequences are brimming with zippy energy and visual references that pay homage to everything from Reservoir Dogs to Bullitt .
Aside from a few barbed quips and a delicious opening scene that riffs on Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction diner sequence (with a little Reservoir Dogs vibe thrown in for good measure), The Bad Guys is most notable for the way it wastes a premise and ends up feeling like a second-rate Zootopia wannabe.
From the LA setting to the opening diner moment, it’s a clear reference to the early films of Quentin Tarantino— Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction .
There are Tarantino references for the adults (the characters' names all resemble the gang from "Reservoir Dogs," and is that meant to be the café from "Pulp Fiction" in the opening scene?), and, well, fart jokes for the kids.
The film tends to borrow from well-known heist and crime films with the most notable ones being Ocean’s 11 and Reservoir Dogs .
There are double and even triple crosses in the vein of Reservoir Dogs .
There's a funky 1970s vibe to this children's film, which channels Pulp Fiction , Ocean's Eleven and The Matrix , and might work as a gateway to slightly edgier fare.
Kids will love it and the parents won’t find themselves dozing off thanks to its riffs on the Quentin Tarantino filmography (the opening is clearly an homage to “Pulp Fiction” though no child in attendance will piece that together).
Aside from a few barbed quips and a delicious opening scene that riffs on Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction diner sequence (with a little Reservoir Dogs vibe thrown in for good measure), The Bad Guys is most notable for the way it wastes a premise and ends up feeling like a second-rate Zootopia wannabe.
From the LA setting to the opening diner moment, it’s a clear reference to the early films of Quentin Tarantino— Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction .
Within the first two minutes of the retro-cool and warmhearted animated crime thriller spoof “The Bad Guys,” we can tell we’re in for something refreshingly original—because those two minutes (and change) consist of a single, unbroken shot in a diner that is a clear homage to the prologue of “Pulp Fiction,” and how about that.
The opening diner scene is heavily inspired by Pulp Fiction and the film is said to also be influenced by Luc Besson, Guy Ritchie, and other works from Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.
There's a funky 1970s vibe to this children's film, which channels Pulp Fiction , Ocean's Eleven and The Matrix , and might work as a gateway to slightly edgier fare.
In fact, much of “The Bad Guys” is a nod, a wink and a nudge to “Ocean’s Eleven,” down to the storytelling, visual style and some very specific jokes: Wolf puts the moves on a female fox by going “full Clooney.”
The way each character is assigned a skillset will undoubtably draw comparisons to Ocean’s Eleven (2001), with Wolf’s cool, unfazed leader being inspired by George Clooney.
This leads to a rift within the ranks, and some pretty neat twists and turns and reveals, with the actors doing wonderful voice work while “The Bad Guys” serves up nods to classic crime films such as “To Live and Die in L.A.,” “Bullitt,” “The Italian Job,” “The Hot Rock” and “Snatch”—but mostly Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels.
Other classics like “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Heat” seem to be obvious inspirations for director Pierre Perifel, making his feature directorial debut.
And that's being a caper sort of flick along the lines of "Ocean's Eleven," especially with Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell) clearly giving off a definite George Clooney vibe.
The film's setting and themes have echoes of "Zootopia," with hints of prejudice, social justice and ethical dilemmas abounding.
Aside from a few barbed quips and a delicious opening scene that riffs on Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction diner sequence (with a little Reservoir Dogs vibe thrown in for good measure), The Bad Guys is most notable for the way it wastes a premise and ends up feeling like a second-rate Zootopia wannabe.
The Bad Guys shared a theme with films like Wreck-It Ralph , Megamind , Despicable Me , and most importantly Zootopia .
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse appears to have been an inspiration, while Zootopia and (more coincidentally, we’re guessing) Turning Red also come to mind in terms of how downright amazing The Bad Guys looks.
This one belongs to that spirited bunch like “Zootopia” and “Megamind.”
Yes, humans are the dominant species here; The Bad Guys is nothing like a retread of 2016’s Zootopia, though the two movies do share some thematic motifs regarding stereotypes and the impacts they have on us.
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Tarantula gets one of the best recent moments that form part of the never-ending nods at the famous, dangling from wires scene in “Mission: Impossible.”
With a gob of My Fair Lady (1964), a dash of Pulp Fiction (1994), a smidge of Mission: Impossible (1996), a dollop of Ocean’s 11 (2001), and a solid helping of Zootopia (2016), The Bad Guys becomes a charm-wrapped lesson that you can be anything you want to be, it’s never too late to change, and doing right by your friends is better than doing wrong to your enemies.
The Bad Guys shared a theme with films like Wreck-It Ralph , Megamind , Despicable Me , and most importantly Zootopia .
With its emphasis on gadget-enhanced heists, and ability to work them into the story even in the service of virtue rather than vice, The Bad Guys recalls the villain battles of Despicable Me .
We’ve seen it in Megamind (2010) and to a much larger degree, Despicable Me (2010).
"The Bad Guys" certainly qualifies as a richer experience than the animated sequels to "Despicable Me" and "The Addams Family," but lags behind all Pixar productions.
Think Despicable Me , Sing , or the most recent animated Grinch cartoon from Illumination as key aspects.
It goes to some creative and funny places, featuring some fine voice talent, but the animation is nothing special, and way too much of it feels like rehashed parts of other animated films, most notably Monsters Inc., Zootopia, and the Despicable Me series.
The heist sequences are brimming with zippy energy and visual references that pay homage to everything from Reservoir Dogs to Bullitt .
This leads to a rift within the ranks, and some pretty neat twists and turns and reveals, with the actors doing wonderful voice work while “The Bad Guys” serves up nods to classic crime films such as “To Live and Die in L.A.,” “Bullitt,” “The Italian Job,” “The Hot Rock” and “Snatch”—but mostly Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels.
“The Bad Guys” doesn’t feel like a movie we’ve seen before from Dreamworks animation- though there are times I was reminded of the “Kung Fu Panda” films, and it immediately hooked me into the story.
It would be as deceptive as some of these anthropomorphic animals themselves to say that The Bad Guys isn’t easy to read and predict, but it does find an irresistible charm through impressively blending animation styles (Pierre Perifel makes his narrative length directing debut, having previously worked as an animator on respectable projects such as the Kung Fu Panda series) that lends a graphic novel touch to some of the action sequences (especially the fast-paced hand-to-hand combat segments).
Directed by animation department veteran Pierre Perifel (“Kung Fu Panda”) and scripted by Etan Cohen (“Men in Black 3”), “The Bad Guys” begins like cross between “Kung Fu Panda” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs.” “The Bad Guys” is set in a fictionalized Los Angeles, where anthropomorphic animals co-exist along with cartoon-like humans.
Pierre Perifel, an animator on the “Kung Fu Panda” movies, makes his feature-directing debut with “The Bad Guys,” working from a screenplay by Etan Cohen (“Tropic Thunder,” Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa”).
A lazily-plotted heist comedy, the directorial debut of Pierre Perifel (an animator who worked on many of the Kung Fu Panda installments) may find favor with children while causing more than a few adults to doze off.
Similar to how Shrek elevated the fairy tale and Kung Fu Panda the kung fu subsect, Pierre Perifel‘s crime caper has a lot of fun playing into the stereotypes we expect from such a genre, pilfering them just so, and layering it with a universal brand of comedy that hopefully allows these Bad Guys to continue on.
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The Bad Guys shared a theme with films like Wreck-It Ralph , Megamind , Despicable Me , and most importantly Zootopia .
We’ve seen it in Megamind (2010) and to a much larger degree, Despicable Me (2010).
This one belongs to that spirited bunch like “Zootopia” and “Megamind.”
It started all the way back in 1998 when Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson's Antz came out just one month before John Lasseter’s A Bug's Life , and movie-goers have been drawing lines between projects ever since – from Shark Tale (2004) vs. Finding Nemo (2003), to Megamind (2010) vs.
Mostly inspired by Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to go in a bold and dynamic direction for the animation, the character designs in The Bad Guys are said to pay homage to Hergé ( The Adventures of Tintin ), Albert Uderzo ( Astérix ), André Franquin ( Gaston , Marsupilami ), Moebius ( Blueberry , Jodorowsky’s Dune ), and Akira Toriyama (the Dragon Ball franchise).