The Bad Guys 2 Is the Ultimate Ripoff: Pay $30 for Groundhog Day Crime Cats
Hello everyone. So apparently, we’ve reached that delightful point of cinematic inevitability where Hollywood churns out sequels like fast-food burgers-cheap to make, blandly familiar, and somehow still priced like filet mignon. Enter The Bad Guys 2, DreamWorks’ slightly shinier attempt at convincing us that anthropomorphic animals failing at “being good” is worth shelling out a premium $29.99 digital purchase. Thirty bucks-because, apparently, morals aren’t the only thing being hijacked here. It’s also your wallet.
Plot: Same Heist, Different Hat
The premise-oh yes, the glorious “plot.” The crew of reformed animal criminals are trying very, very hard to be good, but shockingly, they’re forced back into bad behavior for a globe-trotting, “high-stakes” heist orchestrated by a rival group called “The Bad Girls.” Couldn’t see that twist coming if you were blindfolded in a coal mine. If this were a video game, it’d be Paid DLC: The Same Heist But Pinker. Honestly, we’ve seen this type of writing so often it should come with a Surgeon General’s warning about plot-induced déjà vu. Yes, doctor’s orders: this movie may cause repetitive narrative syndrome.
Cast and Voices
We’ve got Sam Rockwell doing his smooth Wolf thing, Anthony Ramos, Awkwafina, Marc Maron, Craig Robinson, and a smattering of other talented voices-from Zazie Beetz to Natasha Lyonne-dragged into the recording booth to cash a paycheck. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good. They’re fun. But it’s like putting great hardware in a PC that’s running Windows ME. At some point, no matter how shiny the parts, the system itself is going to fail under the weight of recycled code.
Streaming and Pricing Nonsense
So let’s talk money, because Hollywood certainly wants to. The PVOD will be available August 19 for the glorious “bargain” of $29.99 for purchase, or a 48-hour rental at $24.99. Yes, you heard that right-five bucks less to rent for two days. Ah, the bold economic strategy of the entertainment industry: make it so financially nonsensical that you’d need a conspiracy board with red string to diagram who thought this up. Paying almost the full price to not own the movie? Who’s running these figures, game devs from the loot box era?
Critics and Audience Reception
The numbers: the film sits at 87% fresh with critics, while audiences slapped it with a sparkling 95%. Translation: it’s candy-coated fluff, and audiences ate it like a free health pack in a boss fight. Financially, the film sits at $95.7 million worldwide against an $80 million budget-basically limping away just above cost like a mage who escaped the dungeon with 2 HP left. Critics claim the sequel “raises the stakes” while keeping its sense of fun, which is critic-speak for: “Hey, at least it didn’t completely suck.”
“The Bad Guys 2 ramps up the action and the distraction, earning this sequel a delightfully ‘bad’ reputation.” – Rotten Tomatoes Audience Consensus
Final Diagnosis
Here’s my professional opinion, both as a media critic and as a doctor who occasionally diagnoses severe cases of sequel fatigue: The Bad Guys 2 is a serviceable distraction, fine if you’ve got kids or if you’re desperate for a couple of laughs featuring animals who have more personality than 90% of modern streaming characters. But this isn’t groundbreaking cinema. It’s the equivalent of rehydrating leftovers and trying to convince yourself it’s a gourmet meal. If you want “good” bad guys, just wait until this thing hits regular streaming. Paying $30 for this? That’s the real crime story here.
Verdict: Competently made, well-voiced, moderately amusing, but overpriced and creatively predictable. Not terrible, not exceptional-a sequel that plays it safe and serves up exactly what the marketing department promised. Which is both the blessing and curse of Hollywood: you get precisely what you pay for, unless you pay $30, in which case you get the same thing everyone else eventually gets for free three months later.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is entirely my opinion.
Source: ‘The Bad Guys 2’ New On Streaming This Week, Report Says, https://www.forbes.com/sites/timlammers/2025/08/16/the-bad-guys-2-new-on-streaming-this-week-report-says/
