The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday Review: It’s Fine

The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday is a fun addition the world of The Bad Guys, but it just doesn’t deliver the same as the feature film.

Everyone loves getting into the holiday season with their favorite characters, and now The Bad Guys have a holiday special. While the animation is not nearly as polished as the film, and the new voice cast will throw fans off for the first half, it is a fun addition to the franchise.

Clocking at just twenty-two minutes long, The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday is set before The Bad Guys film and sees the gang planning the ultimate holiday heist. However, when things go awry, they must pivot if they want to pull it off.

As with many made for television shorts, the big name actors do not return to voice the characters for one reason or another. It could be because it is simply out of budget for the studio, or because the actors have prior commitment. None of them returned to voice their The Bad Guys characters for this short — and it is quite obvious.

You know that thing where new people come in and they try to mimic the original voices, but all that does is make it more distracting than if they used their own voice? Every so often it sounds exactly right, and then it goes completely out of wack on a word? Yeah, that is exactly what happens here.

This isn’t necessarily a fault of the actors, they were likely directed to do so, but while it sometimes works, the times that it doesn’t pull viewers completely out of the story.

Again, as is the norm with these types of specials, the animation is not nearly as polished in The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday as it is in the final version of the film. Don’t get me wrong, it stays true to The Bad Guys style, but it is very clearly a more “simple” version of it. There are certain scenes where this is very obvious, and others where it is not as noticeable. 

When it comes to the story itself, however, that is where it truly shines. It feels perfect for the bad guys. They make sure it is well known that this is set before the gang went good in the film, and then they are able to have a blast with it. Things get crazy and intense, and The Bad Guys end up finding themselves having to do things they never would, just to get their planned heist back on track.

The ending is hilarious, and well suited for them, especially in the eyes of those that know the books and the film by heart. Overall, The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either. It’s a fun little addition to the franchise that younger fans will likely watch again and again to get in the holiday spirit, though, which is likely the reason it exists.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

NEXT: 50+ Of The Best The Bad Guys Movie Quotes

About The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday 

Synopsis: In this new adventure set before the events of the feature, there’s nothing the Bad Guys love more than Christmas morning — because while everyone is home opening presents, it’s the perfect time to execute their city-wide holiday heist.

But when Christmas is unexpectedly canceled, the Bad Guys must do the unthinkable: reignite the city’s holiday spirit by giving instead of taking. Based on the DreamWorks Animation feature film The Bad Guys.

The Bad Guys: A Very Bad Holiday comes to Netflix on November 30th.