Film Review of the Week

Animation

The Bad Guys 2 (12A)

Review: It’s good to be bad in a tail-wagging sequel to the 2022 computer-animated comedy based on Aaron Blabey‘s series of graphic novels, which proved crime does pay for an Ocean’s Eleven-style squad of five anthropomorphic scoundrels led by Sam Rockwell’s debonair wolf. The original film’s pleasing amalgamation of Zootropolis and Despicable Me is more pronounced in The Bad Guys 2, which welcomes back Pierre Perifel to the director’s chair for a breathlessly staged heist, co-directed by JP Sans.

Screenwriter Aaron Blabey tethers his outlandish plot on terra firma and in deep space to a rare metal called MacGuffinite – a tongue-in-cheek nod to an object or person used in cinematic storytelling to brazenly sustain the narrative momentum. Enter into evidence any ancient artefact that cajoled Indiana Jones on a whip-cracking quest. In Perifel and Sans’s quick-witted caper, MacGuffinite’s addition to the Periodic Table sets in motion a predictable redemption so the eponymous scamps can snatch victory from the slavering jaws of “a 24-carat catastrophe”.

Heavily stylised visuals, which evoke the characters’ origins on the page, once again meld hand-drawn artistry with digital wizardry to stunning effect including an unorthodox space rocket launch that casually ignores the laws of physics. Queens of the jungle roar loudest and sit more prominently at the top of the food chain, actively determining the outcome of each outlandish action set-piece.

Master pickpocket Mr Wolf (Rockwell) and his larcenous crew comprising Mr Piranha (Anthony Ramos), Mr Shark (Craig Robinson), Mr Snake (Marc Maron) and Ms Tarantula (Awkwafina) struggle to be accepted as the good guys after a lifetime of skulduggery on the wrong side of the law. An all-female group of criminals led by vengeful snow leopard Kitty Kat (Danielle Brooks) engineers the audacious theft of a Lucha Libre wrestling belt from a packed arena and frames Mr Wolf and co for the robbery. “What if the bad life was your best life?” Kitty Kat taunts Mr Wolf.

She compels him to carry out one final job to protect the shameful secret of his sweetheart, Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz): deranged guinea pig scientist, Rupert Marmalade IV (Richard Ayoade), languishes behind plexiglass in a secure facility for Diane’s crimes. Alas, fiery-tempered police chief Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein) and her officers stand in the path of Mr Wolf and his associates.

The Bad Guys 2 is bolder and brasher than its predecessor but every bit as frenetically entertaining. A climactic heist is audacity on the scale of a deranged James Bond villain. Disappointingly, a protracted fart gag delivers the only laugh outside Earth’s atmosphere. Silence Of The Lambs-style shenanigans with Marmalade are a distraction but blatantly set up a revenge plot for another day.

Action

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (12A)

Review: Often the quickest solution to remedying a problem with expensive malfunctioning technology is to switch off the power, wait a few minutes and reboot the system. The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits the reset button on the glitchy Marvel Cinematic Universe and confidently kick-starts phase six with a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic flourish that sets Matt Shakman’s rip-roaring romp apart from many supposedly superpowered predecessors. By turns funny, thrilling and heartbreaking, this opening foray for Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing is one giant leap forward for cinemakind from the 2005 and 2015 origin stories that failed to capture the spirit of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s beloved comics.

Four scriptwriters strike an appealing balance between humour, action and romance, gift-wrapped with splendid digital effects that serve a simple yet effective plot, which asks us to consider how much we would be willing to sacrifice to guarantee the survival of family, friends and neighbours. Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby are handsomely paired as leaders of the eponymous dream team and their molten screen chemistry doesn’t require any additional heat from Joseph Quinn’s incendiary heartthrob. Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s shy, image-conscious man of rock with a big heart stubbornly refuses to bellow his catchphrase – “It’s clobberin’ time!” – until a worthy adversary requires impromptu tenderising with his fists.

In the Earth-828 timeline, scientist Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic (Pascal), his wife Sue Storm aka Invisible Woman (Kirby), her cocksure brother Johnny Storm aka Human Torch (Quinn) and Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm aka The Thing (Moss-Bachrach) become humanity’s protectors after they return from a space mission with cosmically enhanced DNA. Based in the Baxter Building in New York, the plucky quartet defeat Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser) then successfully broker a treaty to allow his subterranean kind to live in peace beneath the city.

A few months after Sue confirms her pregnancy, enigmatic herald Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) breaches Earth-828’s atmosphere to announce the arrival of her merciless master: a celestial force as essential as the stars. “I herald his beginning. I herald your end. I herald… Galactus!” she proclaims, referring to a ravenous space god, who has devoured several planets in the universe and intends to do the same to the third rock from the sun. The combined powers of The Fantastic Four seem puny against such a formidable adversary and his shimmering messenger. Reed’s calculations produce only one “mathematical, ethical and available” solution and it is a heartbreaking sacrifice none of the team dares to entertain.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps twists and shouts through two hours of interstellar exploration and pseudo-science with consummate ease. Four screenwriters neatly distil characters’ back stories as archive footage from The Ted Gilbert Show (Mark Gatiss) to cut straight to the chase as mighty Galactus begins his fateful approach to the planet. Action sequences marshal just enough dazzling digital trickery to quicken the pulse without losing sight of the family-oriented emotional drama that underpins each rallying cry. Fantastic in name and execution.