I wasn’t a huge fan of the original Bad Guys film when it came out, but everyone else was so I figured I’d give this holiday special a whirl. Which was my first mistake. The second was hum-drumming my way through the whole thing.

The flick features the criminal gang in a prequel to the original film. They have to pull a heist to get everyone’s Christmas spirit back up… which will ensure security guards are safely at home home on Christmas morning.

It’s not actually a bad premise for a bunch of crooks on a holiday. It’s just too bad the actual plotting and scripting feels like something I would have thought up when I was twelve. It’s very cheap, corny, and full of fake cool… the kind of gag that makes tweens giggle at the cleverness. Older kids and adults, yeah, less so.

Plus the animation is woefully primitive and lazy, especially the human characters. I guess you can give the animals a bit of a pass, but the humans are disconcertingly simplistic. It looks so cheap, I’m not at all surprised none of the original voice cast came back.

This is pretty bad, though kids might get a chuckle (and they probably won’t care how dismal it looks). I won’t be watching more from this team until they get around to a properly budgeted sequel.

Score: 67