THE BAD GUYS
****
Director: Pierre Perifel
Screenwriters: Etan Cohen, with additional screenplay material by Yoni Brenner and Hilary Winston; based on the books by Aaron Blabey.
Principal cast:
Sam Rockwell
Marc Maron
Awkwafina
Craig Robinson
Anthony Ramos
Richard Ayoade
Country: USA
Classification: PG
Runtime: 90 mins.
Australian release date: 31 March 2022.
As an actor, Australian Aaron Blabey was probably best-known for the ABC TV series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh, for which he won an Australian Film Institute Award (now known as the AACTAs) for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Television Drama in 1994, and he remained a familiar face on Aussie TV screens until the mid-2000s. Then, unexpectedly, he gave up acting and began writing books for children and was almost immediately acclaimed as a new voice in the world of ‘kid lit’; his first book, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, was published in 2007 and received a Children's Book Council of Australia Award the following year. Since then, his numerous publications have gone on to global success and, as of the end of 2021, he had around 30 million books in print and had spent over 120 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. In a recent interview, he claimed that he was moved to start writing for children when he was reading to his own two sons and thought that most of the books lacked the excitement that he had craved as a young reader. It was, as it has turned out, a very smart career move. Now, one of his most popular series, The Bad Guys, has been turned into an animated film by DreamWorks Animation.
The Bad Guys is the story of five ne’er-do-wells, Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Mr. Snake (Mark Maron), who are forced to be good after they’re caught in the act of stealing a valuable statuette. Prior to this, Mr. Wolf was fond of saying, “We may be bad, but we're so good at it!” but having turned a page, or at least pretended to, he is surprised to realise that doing good makes you feel good as well. Not only that, people stop looking at you like you’re a freak. Who knew? There’s only one problem… well, four really – he has to convince the rest of the crew that not being bad is good!
The screenplay of The Bad Guys, written by Etan Cohen (not to be confused with Ethan Coen, one half of the filmmaking Coen brothers), is not solely an adaptation of the first book in The Bad Guys series; it includes parts of the first four books. In other words, there’s plenty more where that came from because the series is currently up to 19 books, so stay tuned for a sequel if this film is a success. Talking of Cohen, producer Damon Ross says, “He wrote Tropic Thunder, Idiocracy, as well as Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa for DreamWorks Animation, so he had experience in animation and working with us, plus he had written these big, iconic adult comedies. We had a strong instinct that he would respond to the silliness and character comedy of the books and have the mindset to elevate it all and bring it to a bigger platform.” The computer-generated animation, under the direction of debut director Pierre Perifel, is bright, breezy and colourful and the voice cast obviously had a lot of laughs recording their parts and that sense of fun carries over into the movie. The youngsters in the audience at the media screening seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and giggled and laughed in all the right places, as did their accompanying adults. Fans of the books will definitely approve of The Bad Guys movie and, alternatively, the film may encourage kids who haven’t read the series to seek them out. And that’s got to be good.
Screenwriters: Etan Cohen, with additional screenplay material by Yoni Brenner and Hilary Winston; based on the books by Aaron Blabey.
Principal cast:
Sam Rockwell
Marc Maron
Awkwafina
Craig Robinson
Anthony Ramos
Richard Ayoade
Country: USA
Classification: PG
Runtime: 90 mins.
Australian release date: 31 March 2022.
As an actor, Australian Aaron Blabey was probably best-known for the ABC TV series The Damnation of Harvey McHugh, for which he won an Australian Film Institute Award (now known as the AACTAs) for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Television Drama in 1994, and he remained a familiar face on Aussie TV screens until the mid-2000s. Then, unexpectedly, he gave up acting and began writing books for children and was almost immediately acclaimed as a new voice in the world of ‘kid lit’; his first book, Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, was published in 2007 and received a Children's Book Council of Australia Award the following year. Since then, his numerous publications have gone on to global success and, as of the end of 2021, he had around 30 million books in print and had spent over 120 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. In a recent interview, he claimed that he was moved to start writing for children when he was reading to his own two sons and thought that most of the books lacked the excitement that he had craved as a young reader. It was, as it has turned out, a very smart career move. Now, one of his most popular series, The Bad Guys, has been turned into an animated film by DreamWorks Animation.
The Bad Guys is the story of five ne’er-do-wells, Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and Mr. Snake (Mark Maron), who are forced to be good after they’re caught in the act of stealing a valuable statuette. Prior to this, Mr. Wolf was fond of saying, “We may be bad, but we're so good at it!” but having turned a page, or at least pretended to, he is surprised to realise that doing good makes you feel good as well. Not only that, people stop looking at you like you’re a freak. Who knew? There’s only one problem… well, four really – he has to convince the rest of the crew that not being bad is good!
The screenplay of The Bad Guys, written by Etan Cohen (not to be confused with Ethan Coen, one half of the filmmaking Coen brothers), is not solely an adaptation of the first book in The Bad Guys series; it includes parts of the first four books. In other words, there’s plenty more where that came from because the series is currently up to 19 books, so stay tuned for a sequel if this film is a success. Talking of Cohen, producer Damon Ross says, “He wrote Tropic Thunder, Idiocracy, as well as Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa for DreamWorks Animation, so he had experience in animation and working with us, plus he had written these big, iconic adult comedies. We had a strong instinct that he would respond to the silliness and character comedy of the books and have the mindset to elevate it all and bring it to a bigger platform.” The computer-generated animation, under the direction of debut director Pierre Perifel, is bright, breezy and colourful and the voice cast obviously had a lot of laughs recording their parts and that sense of fun carries over into the movie. The youngsters in the audience at the media screening seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves and giggled and laughed in all the right places, as did their accompanying adults. Fans of the books will definitely approve of The Bad Guys movie and, alternatively, the film may encourage kids who haven’t read the series to seek them out. And that’s got to be good.
