The Angry Birds Movie - movie review

The Angry Birds Movie

Plot: Find out why the birds are so angry. When an island populated by happy, flightless birds is visited by mysterious green piggies, it's up to three unlikely outcasts - Red, Chuck and Bomb - to figure out what the pigs are up to.
Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride
Directors: Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly
Rating: U
Runtime: 1hr 37 mins
Release Date: Friday 13th May 2016

Um, so, yeah. Hollywood are running out of ideas. It was an inevitability but I thought this would happen in a few years rather than in 2016. Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, I present to you, a feature length movie based off of an app in which you launch birds from a catapult at structures to kill pigs. I may not like the film but the fact that some poor sod had to write material lasting over an hour on that basis is a miracle. The result was as expected. Does. Not. Work. The worst part of it all, was that after watching a couple of the trailers, I had convinced myself that it may stand a chance at being good.


Ok, that may have been a little harsh. This movie is by no means terrible. I can't say that I enjoyed all of it, but elements had promise and were executed decently. The voice cast featured lands in my positives for the film. Some of the cast aren't brilliant but some are more than fine in the film. Jason Sudeikis voices Red, our main bird who has a bit of an anger issue. He was the one character who I wasn't too keen on. Sudeikis does a good job as the voice but I don't think he was the right fit. The film is called 'Angry Birds' but whenever Red clenches and prepares to get angry, Sudeikis' style of comedy makes it come across as sarcastic rather than pure rage. If he could harness that anger and then transfer it into his voice performance, I'm sure that it would have worked, but I couldn't help but think someone like Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell might have been a more appropriate choice. Speaking of appropriate casting decisions, Josh Gad voicing Chuck (the fast yellow bird) was a great selection. With the role of Olaf from Frozen already under his belt, Gad's interpretation of Chuck is fast paced, crazy and sure to make the youngsters in the audience laugh. There were a couple instances where Chuck began to grate on me during scenes when he is just shrieking and shouting everything but on the whole, Gad did well. Probably my favourite character in this film was Bomb voiced by Danny McBride. For anyone who has seen either Eastbound and Down or This Is The End knows exactly why McBride was a fantastic choice for the explosive bird. He manages to find a balance between his character embracing the anger and wanting to achieve serenity. I also thought that he had the funniest jokes and made me laugh the most out of all the cast. In some of the supporting roles, we have some past and present Saturday Night Live cast members such as Maya Rudolph as the anger management therapist, Kate McKinnon as a pink bird, and Bill Hader as the King Pig. All three of these were fine in the role but I didn't think it was anything extremely special or memorable. As Mighty Eagle is the voice of Peter Dinklage. His voice performance confused me a little. I wasn't sure if he was embracing the silliness of his character by delivering each line deadpan or Dinklage just didn't care. I honestly can't work it out. Finally, and in the most bizarre casting decision I've seen in some time, is Sean Penn. Oscar winning actor Sean Penn stars in The Angry Birds Movie. I genuinely think I threw up in my mouth a little. To add fuel to the fire, Penn doesn't even really voice a character. He stars as Terrence; a giant menacing looking bird who only grumbles. In this entire film, we never hear Sean Penn actually speak. WHY?!

So some of you may be asking yourself, if the voice cast wasn't that bad, why do you not like this film? To answer this question in the easiest way possible, it's all to do with the story. Bear this all in mind; the game(s) Angry Birds consist of firing birds at pigs. That's all we do. I've played the game. It's a decent game. But not once did I want to learn the backstory of each character and the childhood traumas they experienced causing their anger. I just want to fling them at wooden beams to cure my boredom. If this is the start of Hollywood taking expendable characters from a recognised brand and making a film all  about them, how long is it going to be until we see a spy thriller starring the man on the Pringles can or a superhero movie featuring the Go Compare Man with Alexander the Meerkat? (Actually, that latter idea doesn't sound that bad.) What I mean by all of this was that if The Angry Birds Movie stuck to it's video game roots and showcased what we all know it for, I could leave happy. Instead, that doesn't happen until the final twenty minutes meaning that the other hour is full of exposition that I don't care about, characters I don't care about and plot points that I don't care about. The only positive aspect of the story that didn't involve birds flying at buildings was that it attempted to provide a message for kids. Much like Inside Out teaching children that it's ok to be sad at times, this film does the same with anger, albeit in a much more convoluted and confusing way. But something that has drawn a lot of criticism towards this film is it's varying humour. In my opinion, any animated film should always try to entertain the adults in the audience because the likelihood is that they are taking kids with them. Pixar is the master at this with delivering jokes that are bound to go over kids heads. In Angry Birds, the adult jokes seem a little too prominent and dare I say, too dirty for a primarily child orientated film. When portions of the film are dedicated to pigs dancing in assless leather chaps and using plungers as nipple tassels, I have to question as to who this film is aimed for. Parents may find that funny but too much of it is used that will end up leaving young kids with short attention spans disinterested. It never found a balance.

To recap; the voice cast do an admirable job with some standouts but the story seems as if it's being made up as the film goes along. The one thing that could save Angry Birds becoming a trainwreck of a film is the animation. Fortunately, this film looks very good. The birds are designed in a very authentic way sticking to their resemblance to the game with a lot of detail on their feathers and the scenery. At times, I was getting vibes of it being a feature length Looney Tunes only with less jokes and unrecognisable characters. It's bright and colourful and when the birds finally begin flying out of the slingshot, it does look very faithful to the game. The powers that some of the birds have stick true to the game so I would assume that any die hard fans of the franchise will be happy.

Despite my mini rant on why this film was even made in the first place, I actually didn't mind it. I could never see myself re-watching it and it isn't something I recommend to see, but there are worse times to spend your day. I am serious though, a Go Compare and Meerkat superhero team up could be the next big thing. Off I go to Hollywood to pitch it to some executives.

My Verdict: 5/10

What did you think of The Angry Birds Movie? Which set of characters do you think never deserved a film? Post your comments below.

If you like what you've seen here, don't forget to share this post, comment below and check out my other reviews. Thanks for reading!