Look, I know what you’re thinking. Why are we talking about a movie featuring a purple squirrel and a bunch of city animals fighting a corrupt mayor? Most people wrote off The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature the second it hit theaters back in 2017. It’s easy to dismiss it as just another sequel in the "talking animal" genre that dominated the mid-2010s. But if you actually sit down and look at the production history, the box office gamble, and the weirdly aggressive slapstick, there is a lot more to unpack than just some jokes about acorns.
It was a strange time for ToonBox Entertainment. They had a surprise hit with the first film, which, despite getting mauled by critics, managed to rake in over $120 million globally on a relatively modest budget. People liked Surly. Kids liked the heist vibe. So, naturally, a sequel was greenlit. But the sequel didn't just try to repeat the first movie; it doubled down on the chaos.
The Chaos Behind the Liberty Park Battle
When The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature landed in theaters, it faced a massive uphill battle. You have to remember the competition. It was going up against the tail end of the summer blockbuster season. It opened against Annabelle: Creation. Not exactly the same demographic, sure, but the box office oxygen was thin.
The plot is basically a war story for kids. Surly Squirrel, voiced by Will Arnett, is living the high life in the basement of a nut shop. It’s easy. It’s decadent. Then, the shop explodes. This forces the animals back into Liberty Park, only to find that the villainous Mayor Muldoon wants to bulldoze their home to build "Liberty Land," a shoddy amusement park designed to milk the citizens for every cent they have.
Honestly, the mayor is a top-tier jerk. He represents this very specific trope of the greedy city official that feels almost too real for a movie about squirrels. He doesn't just want to build a park; he wants to cut every corner possible. He hires cheap contractors. He ignores safety codes. It’s a satirical take on urban development that probably flew right over the heads of the five-year-olds in the front row.
Why the Slapstick Felt Different
Director Cal Brunker brought a different energy to this one. If you watch the first Nut Job, it’s a heist movie. It’s structured. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature is an action-comedy that leans heavily into Looney Tunes-style violence. There’s a scene involving a golf course and a series of traps that feels genuinely mean-spirited in the best way possible.
The animation quality actually took a step up. ToonBox, working with Gulfstream Pictures and Redrover, put a lot of work into the fur physics and the lighting of the "Liberty Land" sequences. The neon lights of the carnival at night look surprisingly good for a film that didn't have a Pixar-sized budget.
But here’s the thing. The movie is loud. It’s very loud.
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Critics absolutely hated it for that. It sits at a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. Ouch. But if you look at the audience scores, they’re significantly higher. Why? Because kids don't care about "narrative cohesion" or "thematic depth" when a group of white mice led by a kung-fu master named Mr. Feng (played by Jackie Chan) are beat-em-up-ing a group of construction workers.
The Jackie Chan Factor
We have to talk about Mr. Feng.
Easily the best part of the movie. Jackie Chan voicing a tiny, adorable white mouse who turns into a lethal weapon the second someone calls him "cute" is a stroke of casting genius. It’s a meta-joke on Chan’s own legendary filmography.
Mr. Feng leads an army of mice in the city, and their inclusion shifts the movie from a standard "save the park" story into a weird martial arts hybrid. There’s a specific philosophy Feng spouts about the "city mice" vs. the "park mice" that adds a layer of world-building that the first movie lacked. It’s absurd. It’s fast-paced.
The Financial Reality of the Sequel
The numbers tell a grim story, though. The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature holds a somewhat depressing record. When it opened in August 2017, it had one of the worst openings ever for a movie playing in over 4,000 theaters. It only pulled in about $8 million during its first weekend.
Why did it flop?
- Sequel Fatigue: By 2017, audiences were getting tired of "B-tier" animated sequels.
- Timing: It came out late in the summer when parents were already looking toward back-to-school.
- Marketing: The trailers made it look like more of the same, failing to highlight the new additions like Jackie Chan’s character effectively.
Despite the low domestic numbers, the film eventually crawled to around $68 million worldwide. It wasn't the smash hit the first one was, but it found a second life on streaming platforms and home media.
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The Themes Nobody Talks About
Underneath the nut puns and the falling anvils, there is a pretty heavy pro-environmental message. Surly is an anti-hero who has to learn that "easy" isn't always "better." At the start of the film, he’s lazy. He’s forgotten how to forage. He’s forgotten what it means to be a squirrel.
The destruction of the nut shop is a catalyst for a return to nature. It’s right there in the title: Nutty by Nature. The film argues that a life of unearned luxury makes you soft and vulnerable. When the Mayor moves in to destroy the park, the animals are initially too out of shape and uncoordinated to fight back.
It’s about re-wilding.
You’ve got Maya Rudolph returning as Precious the pug, and she has this weird subplot with the Mayor’s spoiled daughter, Heather. Heather is a nightmare. She’s the personification of "more is never enough." The contrast between the animals fighting for survival and the humans fighting for more profit is the core engine of the film.
A Note on the Voice Cast
Will Arnett is doing his usual Will Arnett thing. He’s got that gravelly, cynical voice that makes Surly likable even when he’s being a jerk. Katherine Heigl as Andie provides the moral compass, though her character is often relegated to being the "responsible one," which is a bit of a waste of her comedic timing.
Bobby Moynihan, Gabriel Iglesias, and Jeff Dunham also round out the cast. The chemistry is fine, but you can tell the script is doing the heavy lifting in terms of the jokes. There are a lot of "blink and you'll miss it" sight gags in the background of Liberty Land that suggest the animators were having a lot more fun than the writers.
What Most People Get Wrong
People think this movie killed the franchise. While we haven't seen a Nut Job 3, the failure of the second film was more about market saturation than the quality of the animation itself.
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If you compare The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature to other mid-range animated films of the era—like Spark: A Space Tail or Norm of the North—it’s actually a masterpiece. The bar was low, sure, but Brunker and his team at ToonBox actually cared about the visual gags. The timing of the physical comedy is precise. It’s influenced by the "Chuck Jones" era of animation where the movement tells the story.
The "animal vs. machine" sequences are choreographed like a low-budget Mad Max. There’s a scene with a wood chipper that is surprisingly tense for a PG movie.
Practical Takeaways for Re-watching
If you’re going to revisit this film, or if you’re putting it on for kids, there are a few things to look out for that make it more interesting:
- Watch the background. The signs in Liberty Land and the names of the stores in the city are full of puns that are actually pretty clever.
- Focus on the mouse choreography. The fight scenes with Mr. Feng are actually well-constructed. They use the environment in a way that pays homage to classic Hong Kong action cinema.
- The sound design. The foley work on the mechanical destruction of the park is surprisingly crunchy and detailed.
Actionable Steps for Animation Fans
If you actually enjoyed the vibe of this movie, you should look into the other work by the same creative team. Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen went on to work on The PAW Patrol Movie and its sequel. You can see the DNA of The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature in those films—better pacing, higher stakes, and a more polished visual style than the TV source material.
Also, check out the original short film that started it all: Surly Squirrel (2005). It’s a lot darker and shows the origins of the character before he was "sanitized" for a major motion picture.
If you’re a collector, the Blu-ray for the sequel actually has some decent behind-the-scenes looks at the animation process in Canada and South Korea. It’s a great example of how international co-productions work in the modern age.
Don't just take the 15% Rotten Tomatoes score at face value. It’s a loud, messy, violent, and occasionally hilarious look at what happens when animals decide they’ve had enough of urban sprawl. It’s not Toy Story, but it never tried to be. It just wanted to see a squirrel blow up a bulldozer. And honestly? Sometimes that’s enough.
The real legacy of the film isn't in its box office or its reviews. It’s in its status as a survivor of the 2010s "animation gold rush." It’s a movie that exists because a small studio in Toronto decided they could take on the big guys. Even if they didn't win, they left a mark—and a lot of nut puns—behind.