DreamWorks' "Bad Guys" Takes 'Saving the Cat' as Literally as Possible
And I Am Not Disappointed About it At All
A little basic but the gist of this is that bad guys can be good guys. Saved you a trip to IMDb. Most of any fictionalized character that we’ve been led to believe is bad, can theoretically be good if they have enough therapy and goodwill thrust upon them.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the trailer for this movie or what, but it basically falls into place exactly like its shown in the previews: bad guy does the good but nobody wants to believe them. It’s the whole “cried wolf” dilemma but with a martini twist on top. Not too subtle that it flies under the radar, but also not unique enough that it makes us pucker our lips and say “Refreshing.”
We got a colorful cast of wonderful voice actors with Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Snake (Marc Maron), Shark (Craig Robinson), Spider (voiced by Awkwafina, which couldn’t be called Spider-Woman or Black Widow for very obvious legality reasons), and Piranha (Anthony Ramos). As they say in the opening: they are all villains in their respective communal stories.
Wolf is the Big Bad Wolf.
Indiana Jones hates snakes.
Spider bit Peter Parker and fucked his life (though I’m not too sold on this telling cus we all love our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and Charlotte’s Web? C’mon that was a delight).
Piranhas are just violent in general. I don’t know fairytales with them in it, but they are not usually invited to the birthday party.
Jaws had that whole kerfuffle with a shark.
These stereotypes aren’t used to define the characters and their MO, it’s mainly to cast them as the archetypical “bad guys” of the story, with none of their fairytale mechanics coming into play.
Which considering the MO of DreamWorks, is a little on the nose of outcasts being accepted by the norm (Shrek, How to Train You Dragon, Megamind [OOOH MEGAMIND IS A GREAT STORY OF A NOT SO BAD GUY BEING GOOD], She-Ra, Kung Fu Panda). Like really REALLY on the nose.
But I love DreamWorks and I respect the mission statement of diversity and unique storytelling. They’ve always been the little black sheep themselves and pushing that kind of media into the mainstream is something I can most definitely appreciate.
So yeah. Bad eggs trying to be good ones and us realizing along with them that we are more than our assumed identities, more than our assumed stereotypes.
That bollock of “a fish can’t change its scales” or a “leopard can’t change its spots” so much as a negative idiom to say people can’t change is really just that bullshit. Appearances don’t dictate who we are and whether we’re good people because like yin and yang, there’s a little bit of bad in good and a little bit of good in bad. Always.
Save The Cat
This was honestly the funniest shit to me because they have Wolf literally actually save a goddamn cat out of a tree. According to Blake Snyder, the best way to get your audience to care for and root for your protagonists (and here it’s an ensemble cast) is to have them proverbially “save a cat.” This means doing something sweet or compassionate or kindly, something that makes them less of a dick.
This isn’t literally saving a cat, but actually showing the protagonist as having a heart, and being someone we want to support. To literally save the cat is something out of a Garfield comic strip or the Golden Age of comic books. To literally save a cat is the most basic way you show your audience that these characters are worth your time in watching, that they are in fact redeemable.
So the fact that Wolf has a wholesome ass moment as he climbs a tree trying to save a forlorn, abandoned kitten and he mumble whispers reassurances to it while also admitting his insecurities is smack-dab Rudolph-on-the-nose kind of storytelling, but it also yells out a satirical self-awareness of character tropes dancing with story tropes to salsa their way into our hearts.
There’s the irony when Wolf saves a little old grandma from falling at the beginning of the movie and a kinky— I mean, quirky kind of acknowledgement when she pets him and calls him a “Good boy,” that locks away thousands of years of alpha wolf existence into a domesticated canine which is Wolf’s first cat saving moment, but that’s kind of the whole theme of this movie.
The expectations we put on people to fulfill the versions of themselves we have in our heads, and then the collective vision of who entire peoples are, are often not true to life and lacking in dimension and real character.
So as much as saving the cat has to do with story and character development, The Bad Guys use it to undermine the conventions of all of these tropes. Once you are aware of the things that bind you, it is much easier to break free and use it for yourself.
Narration and Animation Techniques
This movie is bookended by first person, fourth-wall breaking narration by Wolf. He smirks at us and let’s us in on his thoughts, but only at the beginning and the end, once the story has run its course.
In terms of the story, we don’t get much from him talking directly to us besides a little bit of setup in the introduction and maybe a change in character for the ending. From start to finish, we see Wolf as the bad guy because that’s what all the storybooks say. It’s the narrative that’s been written for him and one that he accepts because to fight it seems unnatural and difficult.
By the end, Wolf has maintained his wit and his humor, but he sounds happier. It might be a small thing or it might even be something I imagined for myself as I watched it, but in the final scene, Wolf looks genuinely happier. That’s something to be said about his character development, but also the way his character design changed to accommodate his internal changes.
It’s his smirk without scowling, it’s the laughter that feels real. There is something about the way that all the characters are animated at the end that lets you know that they are changed characters, this time for the better.
And the overall animation itself is poppin’! It greases together some 2D design elements onto a 3D landscape and that makes the familiar image of cartoon drawn animations come to life in a 3D generated world. Extra lines and excessive squash-and-stress animation cycles made this 2022 movie feel like something that could have lived with the Looney Tunes.
I really, really like animation, so I’ve written a few ToP substacks on animation you might like:
Heroines Run The Show, Wotakoi, Esmerelda: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss, Clean Freak Aoyama Kun!, Given, Little Witch Academia, Sk8 The Infinity, and Erased stored in our lil’ ole archives. There are also animated features thrown in there: The House, Encanto (which comes with a Podcast! Yummy!), The Summit of the Gods, Monster House, andThe Hunchback of Notre Dame.