Hey folks, did you enjoy the first "Nut Job" movie and demand to see a sequel? Do you want to see a movie in which animals fight to protect their home similar to lasts years atrocity that was known as "Norm of the North"? Have you ever wondered how Surly the Squirrel met his best friend Buddy? Well, if you said no to all those questions, then you have absolutely no reason at all to see "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature." In fact, I don't even know if anyone demanded a sequel to this film. The first film was so awful and mean spirited that it was easily one of the worst animated movies to come out in 2014. Nevertheless, Toonbox Studios thought people were so anxious to see this movie and made it anyway. And though I can easily say that it's nowhere near as bad as that first film or their earlier atrocity released this year known as "Spark", I still can't recommend this movie as it takes a pretty terrible story, some okay animation, and terrible new characters and blends it into a pretty bad mess of a movie.
Surly the Squirrel (Will Arnett) has now been respected by the animals of Liberty Park and has been enjoying life at the nut shop they got in the first film. His friend Andie (Katherine Heigl) though is worried that the animals are getting too lazy in the shop and tries to get them back to their natural ways, much to her failure. Things, however, take a change when the nut shop actually explodes and leaves the animals worried about finding food. Although they calm down when they realize they can get their food in the park, their luck changes yet again when the mayor of the town (Bobby Moynihan) decides to tear down the park and build a very cheap amusement park on top of it. Realizing that their home is in danger, Surly and the other animals decide to take a chance and fight off the humans hoping to claim back there home. What happens next was given away in the trailer you most likely have watched so there's no need for me to proceed further.
Like I said in my opening statement, the film is nowhere near as bad as the first film. I'll get to why in a minute, but I'll first go over the one aspect that was worse than the first movie. The story. At least with the first film, they tried to take an original idea about animals trying to find food to survive winter and made some aspects work. This film's story is just predictable. It goes every route you expect it to go and all it did was actually remind me of the story from one of the worst animated movies ever made, "Norm of the North". I also really hated aspects that just felt pointless and added absolutely nothing to the story rather than just drag out the film like the backstory involving a young Surly meeting Buddy for the first time. The animation also took a downgrade from the first film. While it's certainly not awful and has some great backgrounds in it, it looks partially unfinished as some aspects looked a little off to me as the hair on both Surly and Andie. Speaking of which I will give credit that the characters from the first film are heavily improved. They at least made them a little likable (especially Surly) and even were thankful enough to get rid of Brendan Fraser's character of Grayson. The only problem is that the new characters are awful. Jackie Chan's character of a mouse called Mr. Fang was pointless and could have been cut entirely and nothing would really change. I also really hated the mayors spoiled, bratty, and egotistical daughter who all she did was remind me of Veruca Salt from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." She even goes to the point where she says "I want it now!". The mayor is also a terrible villain and I was even able to find him worse than Raccoon from the first movie. I did at least like the dog crushing on Precious named Frankie played by Bobby Cannavale, though then again I don't know how this movie couldn't make most of these new characters likable.
While "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature" is an improvement over its predecessor, I still can't recommend this movie in any way due to its awful story, only okay animation, and some most terrible new characters. If you want to see a funnier and overall better-animated movie starring Will Arnett, I recommend renting "The Lego Batman Movie". At least that movie didn't give me another allergy attack.
