The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature - A kick in the nuts is better than this

To me, one of the most offensive excuses anyone can utter when discussing a bad films severe lack of quality is the ever so popular phrase "it's just a KIDS movie!". As if to imply that movies intended for kids don't require any actual effort put into the writing, animation, characters, or even sympathetic characters because, after all, one of the many delusions that Hollywood is under, is that kids are STUPID. Therefore, they think that they don't need to put any effort into films intended for kids because they only exist to help parents shut the kids up for an hour and a half. Not only is this offensive to me as a person, as a proud uncle, and as a film enthusiast, but I also find it to be down right immoral. Making a film aimed at kids does not give you an excuse to be lazy and apathetic. It should be a proclamation that you are willing to take on a great challenge and do your best. Saying this movie doesn't even try is putting it mildly. This movie goes out of its way to do everything wrong with no consideration for anyone in its audience. Especially the kids.

As you no doubt have guessed based upon the films title, this is a sequel to another animated atrocity, "The Nut Job", from 2014. The story follows a group of park critters led by a purple squirrel named Surly, (played by Will Arnett), who is exiled from his group of park critters for being lazy and not contributing to food gathering, preferring to find an angle, an easy way to keep food coming with little to no effort. Soon afterwards he cooks up a plan to raid and take over an old nut shop which has a lifetime supply of nuts in its basement, which just so happens to be the front for a gang of bank robbers. It was an ill received film with poor animation, lousy writing, and a protagonist who is a complete jackass. Seriously, he always thinks he's smarter than everyone else, he's a constant jerk to the one lady squirrel named Andie, (played by Katherine Heigl), who eventually and unjustifiably becomes his love interest, and none of the characters have any personality outside of silly and stereotypical New Yorker. Not to mention it was loaded with every single aspect of modern animated kids film formula which consists of CG animation, bright colors, an overabundance of referrencial humor, toilet jokes, and top it all off with a pace that moves at a million miles per hour because kids apparently can't hold their attention for longer than a minute.

You would think after such a massive flop like this that you wouldn't hear anything more from this franchise that could, right? Well, apparently the first film made enough money to not only warrant a sequel, but also this is getting its own TV series and a third movie in 2018. Me thinks the producers are sitting on a few assets that they should really put to greater use.

The sequel takes place immediately after the first film where the critters have successfully taken over the nut shop and are now living in luxury with plenty of food to spare. Until one day somebody forgot to turn off the boiler and accidentally blows up the whole shop along with all the nuts. Fortunately, (or unfortunately rather), none of the critters were inside. This causes everyone to return to the park and continue their old fashioned ways of scavenging for food. Except the obviously evil mayor of the city wants to turn the park into an amusement park for profits. So he sends in his team of bulldozers and animal hunters to tear down the park and build up his own personal carnival, thus causing the critters to unite and fight back.

This movie suffers from all the aforementioned problems as the first movie, so in the interest of not repeating myself, allow me to elaborate on the one problem I personally had with this movie. The protagonist, and by extension, the characters, are horrible, Starting with the protagonist, as I've already mentioned, he's a complete jackass. He only looks out for himself, he repays any act of kindness and encouragement with mean rebuttals and apathy, he sucks as a leader and doesn't care...wait...he's basically Donald Trump, isn't he?...Yup, he's just Trump. Therefore, he is arguably one of the most unlikable characters I have ever seen. Nothing about him is interesting or sympathetic, he doesn't learn anything through the course of the film, and, worst of all, the makers of this film don't seem to realize that. Even after this guy has spent ten minutes being the self absorbed jackass that he is, the film still wants us to feel for his plight and root for him when the "good guys" take action against the humans. This might have worked if the protagonist had any redeeming qualities about him but he really, really, REALLY doesn't. He's just a selfish jerk from beginning to end who only looks like a hero because the movie is trying too hard to make us care. Guess what movie, it didn't work.

The rest of the characters don't favor very well either. I only saw this movie a few hours ago as of writing this and I could not tell you anything about the other characters. The most I can remember is that one of them was a hedgehog, another was a pug...and that's it. I could not tell you what there personalities were, what their purpose in the story was, or even what any of their names were. That is how incredibly forgettable these characters were. They're not even characters, they're just walking avatars of various fast paced cartoon drawings that are supposed to make the five year olds in the audience laugh. They're the equivalent of jiggling keys in front of your little niece.

The only "character" who really stood out at all was this one mouse character Mr. Feng, (played by Jackie Chan), a kung fu master with an army of mice who eventually help in the retaking of the park. Jackie Chan is literally the only note worthy thing about this movie. He has always had a good natural charisma just because of how genuinely bad ass he is. He does prove himself to be capable to delivering good comedy provided he has good material. In this movie, even though the material he's being asked to deliver is horrible, his conviction and desire to do it right still shines through. Yet, even so, he is still not enough for me to even consider recommending this filthy trash heap.

If you have kids or are a fan of animated films in general, please do yourself a favor and stay far away from this film. It's not as bad as "Norm of the North", but it's really up there. It's not funny, it's not clever, it's not entertaining, and it is really not worth anyones time.

For the Jackie Chan fans out there, like myself, just wait for his next movie, "The Foreigner", to come out next month. That looks AWESOME!!!

Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you for reading.