When I watched the original Nut Job back in 2014, the furthest thing from my mind was that they should make a sequel, but here we are with Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, I’m not saying it’s good. In this day and age of CG animated movies I just expect better than what we got. This movie has a fair bit of the original cast returning to reprise their roles such as Will Arnett, Katherine Heigl, Jeff Dunham, and even adding some curveballs such as Jackie Chan as a little white mouse called “Mr.Feng”
Most of the cast from the original film returns to pick up where we left off at the end of the first movie with the animals living a carefree life in the nut shop that was used as a hideout for the bank thieves in the original film, now being run by Maury. The main character, surly, aka Will Arnett, are treating the location as an all you can eat buffet while his non-purple variety friend Andie continues to try to hold onto the old ways of storing food for later as an emergency, which is dismissed by Surly and the others as silly and unneeded due to their new home and even newer way of life. I was already thinking to myself, what could possibly go wrong to ruin this; what sort of ridiculous issue are these squirrels going to have to fix….cue the nut shop blowing up, literally.
The rest of the movie is an attempt by Andie, Katherine Heigl’s character, to try and return back to the park where they once lived and go back to their old way of life by foraging and storing for food, but of course Surly and the others have become accustomed to not having to do any actual work for food and just go out to try and find another location that can cater to them as the nut shop did. Of course they find nothing and eventually decide to return to the park where they learn the Mayor wants to tear it down and create an amusement park to try and bring in more cash to the city and his pockets, which of course means the animals will be homeless again.
What follows for the next 40+ minutes is the crew goes from avoiding exterminators, finding a golf course to live in, leaving the golf course then sabotaging construction of the amusement park to having to rescue operation which concludes with a hot air balloon versus roller coaster battle with the mayor. After all this, obviously the animals get their park back and go back to living happily ever after.
Considering the relative obscurity of this release there was some modestly impressive bonus features including a feature Audio Commentary from Director/Co-Writer Cal Brunker and Producer/Co-Writer Bob Barlen who cover all the bullet points for an animated feature. Additional insight into the creative process is shown through a Concept Art Reeel, some Deleted Scenes, and some Animation Progression Reels; all of which might appeal to future animated filmmakers but not the general public.
This was 90 minutes I won’t be getting back, I watched this with my one-year old thinking the colors and silly animals would get his attention and he instead walked off to try and eat the cat. The plot was subpar, it shifted around too often, the animation looked dated for such a new film, and the characters all still look like rip-offs from more famous movies. The best part was hearing Jackie Chan’s voice come from a cute little mouse who knew Tai-chi, but even that was done better by another recent film involving a white rabbit. 
