The Angry Birds Movie is an adaptation of the formerly popular mobile based game, Angry Birds. I say formerly because the game seemed to rise and fall in popularity over the span of about a year or two and I know absolutely no one that still plays the game.
Therefore, I found it odd that Rovio would be eager to make an feature length animated film based on a mobile game that's become irrelevant. For one, it seems a stretch to make a movie on a mobile game with very little narrative to begin with, but I guess anything's possible now that we have seen The LEGO Movie, and almost no one thought that would work including myself (and I even grew up playing with LEGOs so it's not like I was disconnected from them).
I'd seen The Angry Birds Movie advertised as this year's The LEGO Movie and so I held out hope and must say that that faith was ill placed. Now it's possible that Rovio wanted to reinvigorate interest in the franchise and it has yet to be seen if the film will impact downloads of the mobile game but one things for sure, the film itself is pretty successful. It opened at the number one spot for this weekend's box office with a sizable debut of $38 Million managing to barely edge out Captain America: Civil War in it's third weekend (This was expected given The Angry Birds Movie's family friendly appeal). Despite it's financial success the film has indeed been met with poor critical reception (Deemed rotten by both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes). So is The Angry Birds Movie truly horrific?
Not exactly. I'd say it's more along the lines of a waste of time and price of admission knowing that there's higher quality family friendly content out there such as The Jungle Bookand Zootopia, two notable examples from the past two months. The Angry Birds Movie isn't necessarily "bad" though, while I can say there wasn't too much effort being made in regards to expanding the concept of the game and story development, there are some redeeming qualities to be found. While I was reflecting on the film to write this review I managed to come up with a simple idea for a stronger basic premise for the film that would add more complex emotional layers in about ten minutes. I actually am making a video about it and will share it below because I think it's a quick and easy fix to raise the quality the feature significantly. As I said, there are some redeeming moments. First and foremost, the animation was quite impressive as the amount of detail in a single feather was astonishing and the attention to detail in all areas was just remarkable. This isn't the best animation I've ever seen per say but great nonetheless and I felt it needed to be commended.
The voice cast assembled fit their roles well, but no one really gives a "truly worthwhile performance." Jason Sudeikis voices the temperamental protagonist, Red, and the character was very unsympathetic as he had extreme overreactions to small annoyances and it's odd to have a protagonist that you can't identify with and have difficulty finding any common ground for that matter.
Among the supporting characters, there are some that will surely be crowdpleasers in Josh Gad's hyperactive speed demon Chuck, basically Frozen's Olaf on caffeine, and Danny McBride's combustable Bomb. Sean Penn grunts his way through the film as Terrence and Peter Dinklage's role as the Mighty Eagle is amusing. Bill Hader also gets to have a little fun as Leonard, the king of the nefarious pigs who are up to absolutely no good.
These characters are essentially one-note individuals with no character growth, which made the characters a little stale during the one and half hour run time. Really, The Angry Birds Movie's weakness is the lack of plot.
There is very little actual story to and I realize the film is marketed towards children as family friendly entertainment yet seemed anything but family friendly with overt adult gross-out humor. That's not all, the film takes profanity and sloppily replaces it with bird terminology. There's literally a line of dialogue where Red says "Pluck my life." I'm aware that plenty of family friendly films hide some adult humor but they do it subtly, The Angry Birds Movie practically boasts it's inclusion. It's likely that children won't pick up on these things but I'm not sure I would want to risk it if I were a parent. The humor isn't really funny either, but some pee jokes will probably earn cheap laughs.
The film is marketed towards children and treats itself as though it has family appeal, but I found myself losing interest in the choppy, sloppily edited first and second acts. The third act where the birds set up the mechanic of the actual mobile game is admittedly enjoyable as all the characters have a moment to shine with their own unique charm.
Overall, the film just failed to provide any room for the story or events to breathe and never relished in any of it's bright moments. Children actually started just running around the theater in the last five or ten minutes so I guess they weren't able to maintain interest in the film either.
However when I arrived home I was expressing my thoughts and my younger siblings completely disagreed, so it appears as though children are enjoying it. Actually, the reason that my Film Assessment score will be a little higher than I would like as I'm taking the child entertainment value into account (I did the same thing with Minionsas I would have rather given that a score of C). For those that want to know my true score is C+ but taking children's enjoyment into account is important when reviewing an animated feature, especially when it lacks plot.
My opinion of The Angry Birds Movie is that it's ok. I can't say that it's awful, but I can't say it was wildly entertaining either. Frankly, it's a waste of both time and money, but I'm sure it will keep children's eyes glued to the screen.
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