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If you’re like me, Ты don’t really go to Фильмы that much unless it’s something that really interests you. Otherwise, Ты typically don’t find out about a certain movie until it either becomes available for streaming and/or Ты find fanart of it online. For me, it’s usually the latter, and this was no exception.
The Bad Guys, released in U.S. theaters on April 22, 2022, is the latest project of DreamWorks Animation, featuring the voices of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Zazie Beetz, Anthony Ramos, and several others in a thrilling spin on the graphic novel series of the same name by Aaron Blabey. The story follows five anthropomorphic Животные on their everyday adventures of crime and robbery: Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Shark, Mr. Piranha, and Ms. Tarantula. Being naturally ostracized as some of the world’s most unpleasant/dangerous animals, they’ve long since decided to simply go with the flow and commit themselves to their life on the run…that is until an attempted heist of city’s most prized possession goes wrong and causes Mr. волк to persuade the city’s officials into giving them a chance to redeem themselves and become the “good guys.” Thus begins their newest heist to fool their way to freedom by tricking the city into believing that they’ve transformed, but as you’d expect, this doesn’t really go according to plan. There are several foils to this plot, the most obvious being that Mr. волк begins to ponder if he and the others can truly turn good, but there’s one other character in particular who single-handedly changes the course of the movie and saves it from turning into an average story that we’ve seen many times before, and that’s Diane Foxington, the red лиса, фокс governor tasked with overseeing their rehabilitation.
I’ll admit, it took me some time to really figure her out as a character. In fact, the questionable logic of the unveiling of her big secret is one of the several points of concern brought up in a CBR review of the movie.(1) True to her species, her sly mannerisms sometimes make it tricky to pinpoint where exactly she’s coming from and how she’s truly feeling with what’s going on around her, but once all of the pieces come together, she winds up being the key to what makes the redemptive narrative of this movie really shine. How so? Let’s take a closer look. First, a quick recap of the main events concerning our лиса, фокс governor.
Diane as The Governor
We first see Diane making an appearance on live TV where she unapologetically bashes the Bad Guys’ lack of originality in their schemes and undermines their image, taunting them about their Далее heist before bluntly stating that no amount of looting will ever fill that hole deep inside. Naturally, this angers the egotistical Mr. волк enough to plot a robbery of the legendary Golden Dolphin, an award planned to be дана out at the Good Samaritan Award ceremony to the symbol of goodness Professor Marmalade. With no other criminal successful in doing this, including the mysterious Crimson Paw, волк figures this would be the perfect opportunity to cement their legacy as the greatest criminals of all time by stealing the Golden дельфин “from right under [Foxington’s] whiskers.”
The night of the ceremony arrives and the disguised gang take their positions. As part of the plan, волк gets a selfie with the governor near in order to get a pic of her retina for a security scanner, but not before she bashes him and his gang (though it’s implied that she secretly knows it’s him beneath the disguise) for the flaws of their Последнее heists and predicts their decline as a crew after they try to steal the Golden Dolphin, giving off a rather unusual amount of knowledge into their antics. Nevertheless, the plan continues…with волк inadvertently helping an old lady and being praised for his “goodness”...and the Bad Guys eventually manage to get their hands on the prized possession but are caught on the way out. Sensing an opportunity to avoid prison, волк attempts to sweet talk the governor into giving them a chance to redeem themselves, which she allows on the condition that Professor Marmalade, the Dolphin’s recipient, takes charge.
волк explains to the gang that this is all part of the plan to trick the city into lowering its defenses in order to steal the Golden дельфин at a later point. However, after their first attempt to go good leads to еще negative publicity, Diane gives волк some words of comfort and encouragement after he voices his frustration with being constantly labeled as a bad guy, even going as far as saying that a волк and a лиса, фокс aren’t so different while secretly snatching back the ring he’d stolen from her at the ceremony, Показ that she has some pickpocketing skills of her own. When волк saves a kitten from a дерево on video, he and the gang instantly become overnight successes and are welcomed warmly at Marmalade’s Gala of Goodness, where they plan to make their Переместить once еще with the Golden Dolphin.
During the night, Diane invites волк to dance with her, hinting at a deeper relationship developing. With his conflicting feelings playing haywire with him, волк ends up going against the plan to swap the дельфин with a fake and goes to present it to джем, мармелад only for the meteorite on display, a symbol of the city’s hope, to vanish without a trace. волк and the others are arrested, but not before he gives Diane a map and discovers that джем, мармелад is the true mastermind behind the meteorite’s theft and their framing as the culprits. Diane, however, begins to suspect that something is awry with джем, мармелад and follows the map right to the gang’s stash of stolen loot, which shocks her to her core and leads to the story’s big reveal.
Diane as The Crimson Paw
After волк and Snake get into a brawl in prison over the former’s building desire to truly turn good, a shadowy figure busts in and subdues all of the guards before revealing itself to be none other than Diane, a.k.a. the mysterious (former) thief the Crimson Paw. While волк is all too eager to work with her to bring down Marmalade, the rest of the gang leaves them, feeling betrayed by Wolf’s dishonesty with them. This leads to a deep conversation between him and Diane, where she explains that despite being a top-tier uncatchable thief, she too came to a critical hurdle when attempting to steal the Golden Dolphin: she suddenly saw that in her pursuit to be the best thief in the world, she had become nothing еще than the very stereotype the world had дана her as a fox, which led her to leave the Golden дельфин in its rightful place and change her ways and lead a better life.
She takes волк to her old lair and together they infiltrate Marmalade’s headquarters only to be captured by the professor and his new colleague Snake. However, the rest of the Bad Guys Показать up, having finally realized волк was right about going good, and they set out to deter Marmalade’s army of guinea pigs. However, волк and his gang decide they can’t go on without Snake and rescue him from Marmalade’s plot. In the end, it is revealed that Snake had faked his defection to джем, мармелад and instead used it as an opportunity to destroy the real meteorite (the ultimate Источник of power for Marmalade’s plan) and swap out the one they’d been chasing with a lamp replica.
Diane, once again in her role as governor, tries to prevent the Bad Guys from taking the fall for Marmalade’s crimes, but волк and the others turn themselves in instead for all of the other things that they stole, and джем, мармелад is then arrested after it is believed he is the Crimson Paw. One год later, the Bad Guys are released from jail and picked up by Diane as they head off for new adventures as reformed criminals.
The Bridge Between Personas
So we’ve seen both of her sides: the criminal of the past and the governor of the present. The Вопрос is how do these two drastically different personas come together into one fleshed-out character going through her own mental and emotional journey alongside our titular characters in a single organized narrative?
Before we explore the answer, allow me to clarify what I’m really getting at here. After witnessing Diane’s amazing jailbreak stunt, it’s easy to put a lot of focus on all of her incredible skills (seriously, is there any doubt that she was once a master thief?). However, do keep in mind that she’s no longer a criminal at this point, by profession или even by hobby. Her current job as governor is not merely a front in order to continue her secret criminal activities, a plot we’ve seen in countless other stories, but instead demonstrates her genuine change of сердце towards crime, which she explains in detail to Wolf. After all, her busting them out of jail is for a greater purpose than theft: she needs their help to put a stop to a sinister plot rather than to relive her days of old.
Why is this such an important factor to recognize? Because it provides balance and relatability to a character that could have otherwise easily become too perfect in her в общем и целом, общая presentation. I’ve read quite a few fandom wiki pages on her (Dreamworks, Hero Fandom, etc.) that are quick to describe her as being a superior thief to the Bad Guys in virtually every way: better skills, better gadgets, and better heists with no failures.(2) Alongside this, there are several YouTube Видео that rank her as one of the strongest and smartest characters in the movie, with one even claiming that she has “no noticeable weaknesses.”(3) However, this isn't exactly true. While my aim is certainly not to take away from her impressive resumé in any way, I feel it is inaccurate and does a disservice to the story to overhype her skills to the point of underemphasizing или even outright ignoring her weaker and еще vulnerable moments which help shape her into a better, еще relatable, and all-around еще interesting character.
Simply put, Ты don’t want your Герои to be these powerful supermen (or women) who are too good to make mistakes because that takes away from the character-building which can be found in their struggles, especially in stories like this dealing with redemption arcs. After all, this isn’t just a story about secret plots, for which we already have an innocent-looking guinea pig as our undercover villain. It’s also a story about redemption. As such, there need to be reminders that even our amazing лиса, фокс heroine, as multi-talented as she is, still has her own flaws to work through and lessons to learn onscreen, namely concerning her changing perspective on the Bad Guys. To really see how, let’s go back and take a closer look at her highlighted moments.
Brilliant But Not Infallible
When we first see her berating the Bad Guys on TV and later at the award ceremony, she’s quick to point out the flaws of their schemes and the vanity of their lives as thieves. Looking back, we know that she’s speaking as someone who knows these feelings very well from her own experience. Yet…there is enough evidence in her words to indicate that deep down there remains present a sense of superiority, not just in the fact that she is now the governor but also in the fact that she still considers her past self a much better thief than the Bad Guys, even if those days are over for her. As a result, she firmly believes and makes it very clear to everyone…including a disguised Mr. Wolf…that she’s got them all figured out. In short: although she’s no longer a thief herself and has truly become a well-meaning citizen, in her mind, she’s still the best with skills too unmatchable for any other thieves to вверх her, giving her the distinct advantage of ensuring that no one terrorizes her city the way she did since she can predict their actions much еще accurately than most. Admirable intentions for a governor, but even with such a drastically altered lifestyle, what hasn’t changed is her ego which still shines through quite bluntly.
Of course, she is absolutely correct in many of her critiques of the Bad Guys, particularly on how they would “make it personal” by going after the Golden дельфин (as Snake had likewise warned волк about earlier). However, as she soon demonstrates, even she isn’t immune to being proven wrong on occasion; in this case, whether или not these “second-rate has beens” would actually be able to pull it off.
Note her reaction when the curtain goes up and the crowd finds the Golden дельфин missing. She is in complete shock and devastation just like the rest of the audience. This is a pivotal moment for her not just because it was unexpected but because it shows her crashing realization that, despite all of her deep insider knowledge of the world of thievery, she had still managed to underestimate the depth of the Bad Guys’ collective skills and perhaps even feels a tinge of sadness over the fact that they actually went through with their scheme after presumably trying to dissuade волк from doing so (assuming she secretly saw through his disguise, as some viewers have guessed). Mixed in with the genuine concern for the event is a recognized blow to the ego.
And on that note, let’s take a moment to really examine the Bad Guys’ heist properly and give credit where it’s due. Despite what some of the aforementioned YouTube Видео and wiki pages are quick to claim, when all is сказал(-а) and done, the Bad Guys did end up matching Diane by successfully stealing the Golden Dolphin, making them the only other thieves to do so. Although there were a few minor setbacks encountered along the way, it’s hard to call this a failed heist in either its planning или execution since they technically did accomplish their goal of swiping their prize right out from the governor’s firm, high-tech grasp and even had a clear shot of walking out with it unnoticed.
“But they got caught!” some of Ты immediately point out.
Yes, but look again: what was the first piece of the domino effect that led to their capture? It was not being noticed by a partygoer, it was not the police surrounding them, nor was it any gadget malfunction. Instead, it was Wolf’s captivation with Marmalade’s goodness speech on the way out, bringing out those strange, tail-wagging feelings which eventually attracted attention. So, from a technical standpoint, their capture was really a result of Wolf’s conflicting emotions coming into play rather than the heist itself being flawed, meaning for Diane and her security team, this can logically be considered a failure on their part with an incredibly lucky outcome thanks to Wolf's untimely blunder.
In context, not only was this part of the professor’s diabolical plan, but it gives us our first real glimpse into just how similar волк and Diane are to each other since they both came to the mid-heist realization that there could be еще in store for them than a life of crime as the profiled “bad guys” of society based on their animal types. Thus, even at this early stage, the seeds are already there for a change of сердце (even if it happens much еще gradually for волк and his gang), and the critical bond between him and Diane has its foundation, though unrealized at the time.
At first, Diane is incredibly dismissive of Marmalade’s experiment idea to turn the Bad Guys good, which might seem weird at first since one would think she’d immediately be in full support of giving criminals a секунда chance дана her own redemption. Perhaps those desires are there, but they initially seem to be buried deep down beneath a hardened surface of conflict and confusion that requires some unearthing. Frankly, I don’t think Diane truly has been a huge believer in the redemption of other criminals up to this point.
"What? Isn't that supposed to be her whole shtick?" Ты ask.
Well, hold off on the rebuttals, and let me explain. Although they sometimes do align, there is a difference between hope and expectation. Throughout the years...especially her later years as governor...Diane has likely seen many other criminals go down their path to the горький end, which has no doubt had a profound impact on her sense of solitude in her own redemption and her prejudice against those who Показать no outward signs of change. I'm not necessarily saying that she’s a hypocrite, but just that she is still extremely skeptical at this time about whether или not other criminals are capable of reforming as she did (and are willing to) with so little evidence to support it. So even though she may truly desire a change of сердце in the Bad Guys, there isn't yet anything by this point to indicate that it will realistically happen, leaving her with that familiar sense of "Yeah, I've seen this act many times before. Nice try, Mr. Clooney."
While it makes perfect sense that she sees through Wolf’s ruse and wishes to preserve the city’s safety, additionally, there is a detectable amount of irritation in her eyes and voice as she and волк exchange taunts over the gang’s criminal lives. Now, if we dig a little bit here, we find an interesting mix of emotions and potential motivations happening all at once during this scene. On one hand, there is a sense Diane may still feel enough guilt about her own past that she is continuing to shame herself over it, and in a remorseful vow as governor to keep the Golden дельфин in good hands, she sees any other attempt to steal the coveted award as being absolutely despicable, which is a likely reason for her heightened venom toward the Bad Guys after their scheme since she and her security failed to stop them from almost snatching it away.
On the other hand, despite having these petty thieves pretty well figured out overall, as previously explained, there is no way that such a miscalculation on her part over their initially successful theft of the Golden дельфин right under her nose would have no effect whatsoever on her pride. This isn’t just a governor wanting to keep her city and its most treasured possession safe, this is also a former thief with a lingering sense of overconfidence and narrow-mindedness who was just taken down a peg или two by a group whom she saw as sloppy inferiors. They may have been caught in the end as she’d expected and hoped, but compared to the other criminals who had made a Переместить on the Golden Dolphin, the Bad Guys were the ones who came close enough to success to really rattle her self-confidence, and джем, мармелад seemingly giving into Wolf’s ploy only twists that нож in further.
The turning point to her turmoil is when волк Цитаты her line from earlier that night about a pile of garbage being recycled into something beautiful, Показ that he really was listening to her. With this small gesture, she finally relents. Though she is still understandably suspicious nevertheless, we can see the beginnings of a change happening in her, one that says, “Hmm…could there really be еще to this bad guy than I thought? Perhaps I should throw him a bone after all and see what he does with it.” Although it is open to debate, I personally believe that it is at this moment that Diane begins to shed her prideful attitude and officially starts her campaign of support for them, at least on a еще serious level.
This support campaign does encounter a momentary setback after the guinea pig mishap. However, take notice that her frustration here isn’t the same arrogance she showed at the award ceremony but rather stems from a legitimate, shaken hope that they could finally be the ones to follow her example of going against the tide by turning their lives around, and so far they'd done nothing but dash those hopes to her grave disappointment. (Side note: some of the aforementioned wiki pages attribute this to her frustration with being publicly proven wrong; while that might be part of it, I don't fully agree.)
Fortunately, волк restores her fallen hope by opening up to her about his own frustration with being automatically labeled a bad guy because of his species. Bingo! That's what she was looking for: a clearer image of her past self in him to settle her doubts. Even though волк himself may still be coming to terms with his inner dilemma and still clinging to his old ways, she's seen enough to know from her own experiences that his struggles are real, which is all she needs. This, I believe, is the root reason for her sudden change of attitude in not turning them into the police chief, and it should be strongly noted that it is here that we see the first real tender moment between them with their feelings for each other growing on a deeper level. No еще hostility или enmity, just pure compassion and empathy. In her eyes, he’s finally becoming less of a nuisance and еще of an ally.
By the time the professor’s Goodness Gala comes around, she’s got her eyes on Wolf, and not out of suspicion или even mere sympathy. She seems to have the hots for him now. Some may argue that this is a bit fast for character development, but keep in mind that there’s a lot about Diane that’s never explicitly revealed; for all we know, these feelings of physical attraction could have been present for a while but it wasn’t until he started Показ signs of changing that she felt she could finally act on them. When волк performs what I can best describe as a reverse pickpocket by returning the ring he’d previously stolen from her, she is noticeably overjoyed.
Once the Bad Guys are framed and sent to jail, she displays a plethora of confusion about what’s going on, since even she had been initially fooled by джем, мармелад just like everyone else. This is another key moment because it’s essentially a repeat of what happened at the award ceremony in terms of Diane having to make a crucial choice of whom to trust. Unlike the first time, however, she senses the Bad Guys may not be behind the crime, supplemented by her in-depth detective skills taking sole notice of the professor’s abnormal behavior. As her mind shifts around like thrashing waters over what’s really going on and the conflicting emotions overwhelm her, she takes a chance on Wolf’s lead and is absolutely blown away by his act of proven redemption.
A Solo Act No More
This is when the critical change of character finally reaches its peak. The Diane we see reveal herself to be the Crimson Paw in the prison is not at all the same Diane we saw at the beginning of the film. The very same group of criminals she previously scorned and mocked as being clumsy thieves she now respects and completely trusts with her big secret. On вверх of that, the once impeccable Queen of cons who always operated alone is now seeking out these bad guys because she needs their help to defeat Marmalade. Also, on a еще speculative note, even her little quip on the лодка about still being the best seems еще akin to playful banter rather than actual gloating at this point as she presumably seeks to ease the Bad Guys' shock over the sudden reveal. Take a moment to really let all of that sink in. With her old ego rapidly melting away, her only concern is doing what's right, even if it means putting her own freedom and reputation at risk.
And now we get down to business. Even with most of the gang abandoning them, Diane and волк still concoct a battle plan to stop the professor’s grand heist. This is another important point of character development that shows these former adversaries now thinking and Актёрское искусство on the same wavelength and Показ mutual respect for each other’s expertise while also further connecting on their shared struggles with leaving the criminal life.
Despite a moment of indiscretion from волк getting them captured by the professor, they are broken out and the rest of the movie sees the established plot through to the end, including another surprise twist from Snake to demonstrate some of his own undercover skills. It is also here that we see one еще major bit of character development from Diane: she attempts to confess her past in order to save the Bad Guys from taking the fall. She is willing to lose everything good that she has gained in her post-criminal days to protect the same thieves whom she had no problem ridiculing and seeing imprisoned at the beginning. That, my friends, is quite the change of heart, and it’s reflected by the fact that волк and the gang are also now willing to turn themselves in and serve some time in order to protect her in exchange. Mind blown!
Diane as the Movie’s Well-Balanced Moral Backbone
When watching her melee prison guards, perform complex athletic moves, and slide effortlessly underneath moving vehicles on her motorcycle, it’s easy to be blown away by Diane and find her without any distinguishable setbacks. However, every well-developed character does have them in one way или another, and if they can’t be found on the first viewing, one has to take a journey rewatching a few times to really uncover the character behind the mask who, with good writing, will reveal themselves through small hints and subtle moments. This is what makes Diane so alive and compelling as a supporting and later major character. She’s incredibly smart but not immune from being played and even bested at times. She’s got amazing talents but learns that even she isn’t above needing help from other former thieves to stop the story’s true villain. She isn’t a one-note stereotype who’s simply there to Переместить the plot along in a typical fashion; she’s a three-dimensional character who is capable of evolving further even after her initial decision to go good and continues facing her own struggles as the story progresses (in fact, one could even argue that the Bad Guys actually surpass her in their own redemption since they end up giving everything back while she, at first, clung to a one stolen item: the diamond hidden in the ring). She may have been and still be the world’s most skilled (former) thief, but where she desperately required some insight of her own was in her underestimating view of the Bad Guys’ similar depth of character, and at the end of the day, she ended up needing them just as much as they needed her.
This is why she is the well-balanced and pivotal backbone of the story’s narrative. Any other direction taken with her, while not necessarily being straight-up bad, would have greatly lessened the story’s effectiveness and creativity. Had she remained nothing еще than the “good girl” governor being their cheerleader on the sidelines (or even been completely absent altogether), the plot would have suffered from a great lack of originality and we would have еще quickly brushed it off as the same standard villain-to-hero story we’ve seen so many times before since the only major point of focus would have been on the Bad Guys themselves. Sure, it may have still had plenty of fun moments, but the story would have been еще clichéd with a looming sense of déjà vu.
On the flip side, had Diane been made too flawless in her role as the Crimson Paw with no hidden faults to explore (another powerful temptation the writers wisely avoided), it would have made her less relatable to us and the Bad Guys since there would be little reason to connect with her on the redemptive level the movie wanted to push and, quite frankly, would even raise the Вопрос of what would prompt her to have such a stroke of conscience in the first place if she excelled so much as a criminal. I realize that from a moral standpoint, there is nothing wrong with seeing the error of your ways (far from it), but generally speaking, in the eyes of someone who has dedicated their life to being the “perfect” criminal, having even the slightest of секунда thoughts would еще than likely be considered a sign of weakness. Again, could the movie still have technically worked if Diane were secretly still a thief posing as a reformed governor? Yes, but once again, how many other stories have we seen where the protagonist’s moral support turns out to be either working with the main villain или is the main villain him/herself? Since this movie, much like Zootopia, is all about not judging the character of anthropomorphic Животные based solely on their animal types, to have the sly лиса, фокс and cute guinea pig truly be their expected good или bad selves would not have had the same unique impact on the Bad Guys’ road to redemption. In fact, it probably would have detracted from it еще than anything.
And that is how Diane’s character arc really saves this movie from being a good-humored and well-animated yet average run-of-the-mill flick. Don’t get me wrong, seeing the Bad Guys have their moments of fun drama, heartwarming hilarity, and thrilling action is a refreshing taste of wholesome gratification in this день and age of constant misery on the TV screen, but what makes this story really jump out from its contemporaries is Diane Foxington, who, in addition to being extremely likable and fun to watch, shows that the changing of the сердце and mind being emphasized by this movie isn’t just a one-time decision for the baddies but also for those who have already been on their new life path for a while yet still have room for еще evolution of character. She remedies the story’s basic and somewhat tiresome “stop being bad” plotline by adding a whole new layer of character development to uncover. After all, growth is a lifelong process!
Once again, my goal here isn't to detract from any of Diane's skills and talents или to discredit any wiki Статьи или YouTube analysts. I simply don't agree with some of the points made in some of those sources. As I have hopefully made clear by this point, I firmly believe that understanding Diane as she is meant to be understood requires a deeper analysis than a superficial discussion of her stronger moments. While those are a big part of her character arc, her little inklings of vulnerability need their proper attention, too.
That being said, there are several other characters of interest who could also be analyzed further such as Wolf, Snake, Marmalade, and even the police chief, but Diane really takes the cake when it comes to the story’s inventiveness and creative spinning of ideas that both catches audience expectations off-guard and actually heightens the plot in a logical way. I am not sure what the future holds for The Bad Guys, but if a sequel does happen at some point (in which director Pierre Perifel has expressed interest),(4) then we’d better see our Избранное лиса, фокс right there alongside the others as they head off into еще fun adventures together!
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts. If Ты have any comments, please feel free to leave them down below! Until my Далее review!
REFERENCES
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©All featured Обои belong to Dreamworks Анимация (some with dialogue text added by me). Their use is strictly for non-commercial commentary purposes, intended solely to further illustrate the critical points made throughout this review under the statute of Fair Use. The review itself and the basic Дизайн of the cover image are mine.
