The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday (Netflix, 2023)
Every year Netflix releases a ton of Christmas movies, and I never watch any of them. But this year I changed my ways and watched the animated Christmas special The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday.
If you remember, The Bad Guys started out as a graphic novel series for children by Australian author Aaron Blabey, before DreamWorks turned the property into an animated feature film in 2022.
In this enjoyable family film notorious criminals Mr. Wolf (the pickpocket), Mr. Snake (the safe-cracker) Mr. Piranha (the muscle), Mr. Shark (the disguise expert) and Ms. Tarantula (a.k.a. ‘Webs’ the hacker), were finally caught after a long run of successful heists.
To avoid serious jail time, the anthropomorphic animal outlaws were forced to pull off their most unbelievable con and transform into model citizens. The result was visually inspired by Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, while the movie also included nods to classic movies like Pulp Fiction and Ocean’s Eleven.
This new adventure (25 min.), written by Blabey himself, directed by Bret Haaland and featuring a different, probably less expensive voice cast, is set before the events of the feature film. The story kicks off the day before Christmas. The Bad Guys are gearing up for their traditional Holiday Heistacular on Christmas morning, when they rob the city, while everyone is at home enjoying their Christmas presents.
But when Christmas is canceled, due to an unexpected twist of fate, the Bad Guys must do the impossible: reignite the city's holiday spirit by - as the gang’s leader Mr. Wolf (Michael Godere) explains - ‘doing some good so we can be bad.’
But in doing some good, The Bad Guys stumble upon so many complications (and do so much good) that they run the risk of ending up on Santa’s nice list. The irony being, of course, that deep down The Bad Guys are good guys. They just don’t want to be seen like that.
Even though it is not quite as visually impressive as the feature film, this Christmas special is a lot of fun. There is plenty of witty dialogue, augmented by some equally nice voice work. So in the spirit of the movie I would say that A Very Bad Holiday is very good for repeat viewing, especially on Christmas morning.