The Angry Birds Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

The battle of bird vs. pig begins; however, this time they make their debut on the big screen. Will Red and co. be able to beat the evil green swines, or are they outnumbered?

Genre: Action / Animation / Comedy

Director: Clay Kaytis & Fergal Reilly 

Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Keegan-Michael Key, Tony Hale, Peter Dinklage & Sean Penn.

Run Time: 97 min.

US Release: 20 May 2016

UK Release: 12 May 2016

German Release: 13 May 2016

I am writing this a mere hour after having watched the movie, and I need to say, this kids flick managed to pissed me off! The Angry Birds Movie is an animated comedy based on the popular Rovio smartphone game app. It also marks the second game adaptation this year, following the mediocre Ratchet & Clank which debuted last month. What angered me about Angry Birds is the fact that it wasted one-and-a-half hours of my life, as it has no plot at all, includes flat jokes and features incredibly one-dimensional characters! Nevertheless, it did have some redeemable aspects.

The plot revolves around Red (Sudeikis), a red-feathered bird with some severe anger issues that manifest during his unhappy childhood. After assaulting a customer, Red is sentenced by Judge Peckinpah (Key) to anger management classes, led by bird-therapist Matilda (Rudolph). There he meets fellow angry birds Chuck (Gad), Bomb (McBride) and Terence (Penn). When the island is visited by the mysterious green pig Leonard (Hader), Red is immediately suspicious of his intentions.

The scripted story is by far this animation's biggest weakness, taking over two-thirds of its runtime to finally become interesting. The pacing of this adaptation is terribly inconsistent, mostly moving at snail's speed. The story itself tries to build up sympathy for the birds by fluffing it out with several anger management meetings plus hatching scenes, but fails at catching the audience’s attention. In short, I was bored for the majority of the film. It is sad but true; it looks like the creative team behind this movie put more effort into depicting the third act of the film than trying to build an entertaining and engaging animation overall.

The turning point comes at the end of the second act, when the pigs show their true nature and set their sinister plan in motion, making the birds need to fight back to preserve their existence. The fight between birds and pigs clearly simulates the game on film and was the best aspect of the narrative. It also had a nice message for children, stating that it is alright to feel angry as long as it isn’t used as an excuse to do bad things.

However, the dialogue and jokes aren’t that great, aimed at a younger audience rather than a mixed-age room. The format of dialogue used in this animation definitely copies that of Family Guy, using flashbacks and pop cultural references as its main source. The issue with that, though, is that they don’t suit the target audience, since most of them refer to movies and songs from the 80s and 90s. It left the children in the theatre I watched this movie at pondering and lead to a minimum amount of laughter.

The characters in this movie are not really fleshed out and are written most lazily, with the only exception being the character of Red, as we get to see a little bit of his backstory when trying to explain where his rage is coming from. Other than that, no other bird or piglet was explored in the slightest. The inhabitants of Bird Island are all, more or less, the same; always happy, incredibly naive and not likeable at all. The pigs are also depicted equally disappointingly. That said, I was surprised at hearing the voice actors speaking their characters, since they matched perfectly!

Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses) lent his voice to the character of Red, the protagonist and hero of this film. Sudeikis does a fantastic job of voicing this character; it feels very organic, and he is also the only bird that made me chuckle at times. Red himself is a troubled red bird, unhappy with his life and surroundings. He is an orphan and never fit in with others, while the birds he knew used to make fun of his incredibly big eyebrows. All of this culminates in a big fight with a customer, early on in the movie, that leads Red to serve court-sentenced anger management classes where he finds some friendship.

Visually, this animation looks exceptionally good! It is very bright and uses strong colours, which makes it attractive to the eyes. The animation is astonishing for most of the time; the birds are extremely detailed and vary in form and size, while the island is beautifully designed, making this a nearly perfect flick visually, if it weren’t for the green pigs. These looked, in comparison to the detailed birds, mediocre and very simple, including their home city. This had the effect of watching two different types of films: one that used high-quality animation, the other that looked rather fit for TV.

The Angry Birds Movie makes extensive use of famous pop and rock songs from different decades, such as “Rock You Like a Hurricane” from the Scorpions, “Never Gonna Give You Up” from Rick Astley or “On Top of the World” by Imagine Dragons. The score of the film itself was rather forgettable, just like the movie.  

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Verdict: After the mild disappointment that was Ratchet & Clank, I did not expect much from Rovio’s The Angry Birds Movie, which ironically was produced by Sony Pictures as well. I did, however, expect at least a good amount of laughter and here is where the movie let me down the most. Instead of laughs, it dished out an uncreative and very bland story that uses non-stop cultural pop references from the 80s and 90s, but the problem is that this animation is evidently targeted at kids, who won’t understand those references. I also found the characters to have been developed most lazily, but the movie comes around and starts becoming entertaining in the last third of the narrative. Only by then is it too late! I will give The Angry Birds Movie a 5.0 out of 10!

Do you agree with me, or did you leave the cinema feeling different about this game adaptation? Leave a comment to let me know. Thank you very much for reading, and if you liked this review, make sure to share & like it!