Dec 15, 2021

The "Bad Guys" trailer is a great graphic delight

Dreamworks Animation had kept a tight lid on its upcoming film The Bad Guys, but they surprised everyone today on Tuesday with one of the freshest and best-looking trailers the studio has put out in a while.

The cohesiveness of the production design instantly stands out in The Bad Guys trailer. The main characters have great visual appeal, but so does everything else. There's deliberate aesthetic choices for the fx animation, props, environments, background characters, rendering, and so on, and everything is working in harmony. The result is a unique and inviting universe in which the viewer wants to spend time.

An adaptation of Aaron Blabey's best-selling book series, The Bad Guys follows five animal outlaws – pickpocket Mr. Wolf (voiced by Sam Rockwell), seen-it-all safecracker Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), chill master-of-disguise Mr. Shark (Craig Robinson), short-fused “muscle” Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) and sharp-tongued expert hacker Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), aka “Webs” – as they attempt their most challenging con yet: becoming model citizens, as a ploy to avoid prison.

Under the tutelage of their mentor Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoad), a guinea pig, the crooks set out to fool the world that they've been transformed. Along the way, though, Mr. Wolf begins to suspect that doing good for real may give him what he's always secretly longed for: acceptance.

The film co-stars Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh, and Alex Borstein.

It's the feature directorial debut of Dreamworks stalwart Perifel, who co-directed the studio's short film Bilby; his credits as an animator include the Kung Fu Panda series and Shrek Forever After.

Producers are Damon Ross (development executive, Trolls, The Boss Baby,; co-producer, Nacho Libre) and Rebecca Huntley (associate producer, The Boss Baby). The executive producers are Aaron Blabey, Etan Cohen, and Patrick Hughes.

The Bad Guys is currently slated for theaters on April 22 in the United States.