Sam Rockwell does a decent George Clooney impersonation, with a dash of Owen Wilson, in The Bad Guys, a breezy if overblown adaptation of the Aaron Blabey children’s book series. Rockwell voices Wolf, leader of a gang of animals so used to being automatically written off by society as “scary” that they’ve decided to embrace their worst impulses. The delight of the animation is less in its technical sophistication, a la Pixar, than in its wit; there are endless visual gags that involve giving Snake (Marc Maron) arms. And if the movie features one (or two) too many explosive chase sequences, I did like one of the ways it envisions its moral thesis (which is that we all have a good side): whenever Wolf inadvertently does something nice, his tail embarrassingly, uncontrollably wags, like a divining rod for redemption.
(7/7/2022)
