The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature Review

PG: Rude Humor and Action

Open Road Films, ToonBox Entertainment, Gulfstream Pictures

1 Hr and 31 Minutes

Voice Cast: Will Arnett, Maya Rudolph, Jackie Chan, Katherine Heigl, Bobby Moynihan, Bobby Cannavale, Isabela Moner, Jeff Dunham, Gabriel Iglesias, Peter Stormare

INTRO: If there is anything you need to know about me it's that I hate The Nut Job. Only several people from high school know about my distaste for the film when it was released. The animation was mediocre, the jokes weren’t clever, and every character was extremely unlikable. The only reason that the first film was a moderate commercial success was because it was the only animated film released after Frozen (which came out in Nov 2013 and The Nut Job in Jan 2014). After I saw the movie with my sister whom I dragged, I did this in front of parents and their kids.

Little did I know that finger should’ve been used for The Emoji Movie instead. But knowing the existence of this film really angered me. Why is this movie made? Nobody asked for it since the first one was so damn forgettable. But for a while I was dreading this more did I dread The Emoji Movie.

Surly (Will Arnett) and the park animals come upon a plot by Oakton City's crooked mayor (Bobby Moynihan) wants to bulldoze Liberty Park and replacing it with a dangerous amusement park. Surly gets help from the territorial street mouse gang leader Mr. Feng (Jackie Chan) into thwarting the mayor's plot.

THE GOOD:  Another thing about the first flick that I despise was it's over exaggerated physical and verbal humor that was barely funny. Here it's marginally much better, the jokes are actually funny, and the comedic timing hits at some points. It is rather sporadically funnier than its predecessor which I would take over a silent "kill me now" experience. Granted then the film’s animation is so much faster and manic it might as well taken a page or two out of Illumination Entertainment. I found myself laughing here and there, and some of it was natural. 

One of the best if not the only memorable character from the first movie were Maya Rudolph as Precious the pug. Her character was charming was her design was pretty unique opposed to the cutout copies of the other animated animals. Now in this, we have Bobby Cannavale as a new character named Frankie who is placed to be Precious’ love interest. Even though his character is utterly forgettable, I really liked his design. 

When the first Nut Job film was released, one of my biggest complaints about the movie was the abundant amount of unlikable/annoying characters more specifically Brendan Fraiser. Thankfully there's no Brendan Fraiser this time around. Where "The Mummy (2017)" made us miss Fraiser because he was the heart of the franchise, The Nut Job 2 makes you go “Hey where’s Brenden Fraiser?” 

THE BAD: Despite all these positive compliments I have for this film, my primary negativity against this film harks to one question that I had once I saw the movie’s poster. 

Even this picture of myself which was taken in 2016 expresses the same issue.

The movie’s plot is just a retreaded mash-up of "Over the Hedge" and "Open Season", two animated films that both came out in 2006 but had enough elements to stand as their own movie. "Over the Hedge" was an animal vs. human story where the animals fought to store food for the winter. "Open Season" was another animal vs. human film with a fish out of water story of this domesticated bear being placed in the woods and having to fight against hunters with the other woodland creatures. Those films were able to stand on their own. Now "The Nut Job 2" is about animals vs. humans who place an amusement park on their home, but throughout the film, it regularly steals elements from both said features from 2006. THIS IS NOT 2006! Nobody cares about plots like this anymore. Whatever ideas the film considers itself clever and original turn out to be generically lame. 

You have Jackie Chan as Mr. Feng where he is a cute yet deadly mouse with an army that he leads. "Open Season" had Billy Connolly as a cute squirrel with an army that he leads. Do you see where I’m getting at here? It's weird because Jackie Chan’s inclusion was really the only thing that was marketed as if he is the magnum opus of the film that would elevate this to Academy Award level material. But then again his character is only here for 5 minutes in total.

What pisses me off, even more, is that in the first 10 minutes, the nut shop that Surly spent the whole first movie trying to break into explodes. Yup, it just explodes. At first, it's funny because you realize the entire first movie was meaningless, but then you get angry because you realize the entire first movie was meaningless. So, in other words, there's no reason anyone in this theater watching this movie let alone the first film. 

The film suffers from character design copy and pastes syndrome that every cheap animated feature has. It happened in films such as  "Sing" and "Rock Dog", and every other cheaply made animated movie. By copy & paste I mean just place the same exact design of background characters in the background. You see chipmunks, pigeons, and some brown squirrels and they all look the same. But hey when a movie is made on a measly $40 million dollar budget it is expected, right? It's weird because although the animals have more of the same designs, all of the humans have different ones. 

The budget is cheaper than the previous film, and it shows.  The movie’s director is Cal Bunker who did "Escape From Planet Earth", another overly bland animated feature from 2013 with scattershot humor throughout. But what I liked about Escape was the animation which made it look like an actual movie. It's weird because that had the same budget as this, but it had a little bit of cinematic value. I guess it was more with the studio than the product itself because Rainmaker has stellar animation. They may not have good products, but their features are detailed. Toonbox Entertainment, on the other hand, does not. The animation here doesn’t flow like a movie but more as either an extended TV episode or a two hour PS3 cutscene to a video game you’re never able to play. The animation is still slick and janky as its predecessor that it's in desperate need of a render pass.

But what about the voice cast? The film has a great voice cast, right? Well, you have a lot of the returning voice cast such as Will Arnett, Katherine Heigl, Maya Rudolph, but then the big baddie they go against is Bobby Moynihan. The first film was Liam Neeson, and now it's Bobby Moynihan. Yeah, sort of a downgrade. Nothing against the SNL alum for he gives an okay vocal performance, but Moynihan has been a voice actor for years now, and he currently is. He’s in the Cartoon Network show, "We Bare Bears" and now the Disney XD reboot,  "Ducktales". Will Arnett is LEGO Batman, Gabriel Iglesias is going to be in Disney/Pixar’s Coco this November, and Maya Rudolph is….

Oh. Goddamn, it Maya Rudolph. 

LAST STATEMENT: Though it is a marginal improvement over its predecessor, this unnecessarily made animated feature is still as bland and generic an animated feature can be. "The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature"  may not be "The Emoji Movie", but it's nothing you should pay to see.

Just wait for "The LEGO Ninjago Movie".

Rating: 2/5 | 44%

I miss that animated Psy from the first film's credits. This needed some Psy. I was waiting for that Psy cameo and it never happened.

Super Scene: Mr. Feng’s introduction