‘The Bad Guys’ on Blu-ray Is the Perfect Addition to Your Family Movie Collection (Review)

The Bad Guys, Dreamworks’ most recent animated movie, is now available to own on Blu-ray, and it will make a perfect addition to any family film collection this summer. Based on a children’s book series of the same name by Aaron Blabey, The Bad Guys follows an infamous heist crew of nefarious animals — Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Shark, and Ms. Tarantula — who attempt to turn over a new leaf. The movie features the voices of iconic stars such as Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Alex Borstein, and Lilly Singh.

Now available to own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray, DVD, and digital, The Bad Guys: Collector’s Editon home video release has tons of great special features to make it fully worth owning. Fans of the film will find a lot to enjoy in the featurettes, which include deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage, and making-of clips that detail how the movie was created. There is also a hilarious all-new original short title “Maraschino Ruby,” which continues the crew’s adventures after they turn good. The Bad Guys home release also features a table read clip, which lets fans see the actors performing together as the anthropomorphic ne’er-do-wells.

In a previous interview with Coming Soon, The Bad Guys director Pierre Perifel spoke about the process of making the film, including the complicated nature of turning a gang of outlaws into likable heroes. “Yeah, that’s not an easy thing to do, frankly. It was really tricky,” he said. “Well, you know what, in, there is so many movies that talk about villains, and of course, as you said, the first thing you need to make sure you do is make sure that the audience relates to those characters or empathizes with those characters so that they can go onto the adventure and the rest of the film without being like, ‘What am I looking [at]?’”

Perifel then went on to reference an iconic heist franchise that likely comes to mind for many fans when they see The Bad Guys, saying, “When you talk about a movie like Ocean’s 11, you have live-action actors, just a charisma of a Brad Pitt or a George Clooney who are bad guys, but just their charisma on screen kind of carries so much weight that you kind of fall in love with the character really quickly.” He continued, “In our case, you don’t have that because those are like synthetic characters. So obviously your actors will help you out, but you have to create those little pockets of goodness in them. Even though they’re supposed to be bad guys, [they’re] learning to become good guys in a way that changed a little bit where it became Wolf kind of longing to belong, as opposed to I’m a bad guy doing just bad stuff.”

The director added, “Now I become a good guy with just good stuff. It’s not exactly what we’re talking about anymore. It kind of started there, but now it became more along the lines of an underdog character wanting to become embraced and loved, which is such a relatable desire. Therefore, just by doing that, you immediately empathize with the character.”

He finally offered, “Okay. I’m now rooting for a character who has been unjustly pitted or categorized as bad and is trying to belong now, and we want to love him. So that character becomes an underdog, but obviously, you also do it through the charm of the characters, the witty lines, and just a couple of little tricks. Him leaving a tip apologizing and kind of laughing at his own expenses, and I think I think all of these go a long way just to help you emphasize with the character.”