Review - "The Angry Birds Movie"

The Angry Birds Movie - directed by Clay Kaytis & Fergal Reilly

Starring: (voices) Jason Sudeikis, Bill Hader, Keegan-Michael Key, Peter Dinklage, Maya Rudolph, Sean Penn, Danny McBride, Josh Gad, Jillian Bell, Tituss Burgess, Kate McKinnon, Geoffrey Arend, Hannibal Buress, Ike Barinholtz  

Screenplay: Jon Vitti 
Music Score by: Heitor Pereira
Cinematography: N/A
Edited by: Kent Beyda & Ally Garrett

Running Time: 97 minutes
Rated: G - Some slightly smutty jokes aimed at the grownups

As the title would suggest "The Angry Birds Movie" is another in the long line of something-highly-successful-in-another-medium made into a movie flicks.
I am less cynical about such things after the success of other movies in this area such as "The Social Network" but still confess to at least tempering my expectations.
Hard not to when the source material is a largely free but advert supported mobile phone game that was downloaded over a billion times (apparently).
I am sure that I do not need to explain the game concept then but just in case..... basically you catapult birds into structures populated with pigs and must take all of the porkies out in the required number of shots.
Pretty thin stuff for anything but a five minute diversion on the bus really.
But we do indeed have a movie based on such a thing and it really isn't nearly as bad as it could, or probably should have been.
That is not me calling it good as such but it sure isn't too bad either.

I am slightly impressed with the basic plot behind this movie.
Red is an outsider on his bird island.
He has no parents and he is picked on and teased.
Little things like a bird sneezing repeatedly in his popcorn or another bird stepping on his head after he mistakes some flirtive gestures as being aimed at him set him off.
He undergoes a trial for some angry outbursts and verbally takes down the arrogant self-important judge who subsequently throws the maximum sentence at him.
That would be anger management classes and from what I understand of these insipid, hippie-dippy things I get why it is described as the the toughest sentence.
Ugh.
In these classes Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) meets the speedy Chuck (Josh Gad), quiet giant Terence (Sean Penn - seriously) and prone to exploding when upset Bomb (Danny McBride).
I found myself well on side with Red because everything that made him angry seemed perfectly well like it damned well should to me.
Why should he tolerate people's insults and inconsiderate behaviour?
(Actually a timely question given that I was sitting in a cinema with about a hundred kids and their bored parents using cellphones and getting out of their seats every five minutes or so)
As much as I kind of liked the premise it also came with a not so good side effect....
It reminded me of Pixar's rather brilliant "Inside Out" and the theme of balance of emotions that it explored so intelligently and so well.
"The Angry Birds Movie" cannot and does not compete with this.  Not even close.

The cast includes the great Bill Hader (left) Josh Gad, Jason Sudeikis and Danny McBride

Such lofty ideas are merely a tease though as it turns out and very quickly after the idea is introduced the movie takes a turn towards the far more simple.
With a quick jaunt up the highest mountain (an effective and funny sequence) Red, Bomb and Chuck meet the Mighty Eagle.
This does allow for by far the funniest sequence in the movie that sees the 'mighty' bird peeing into the lake of wisdom in which Chuck and Bomb moments earlier had swum in and drunk from.
The film had been somewhat amusing up until that point but this is the killer laugh that it needed.
Sadly it remained the high point and while fun enough and with a decent quota of inventive moments the remainder of the film is just too short on the big laughs.
It suffers in comparison to recent fare like "Zootopia", The Jungle Book" and even "Kung Fu Panda 3"
All of them are smarter about their themes, plotting and jokes.
They are also better with their villains.
The pigs are served very poorly here and exist as very two dimensional characters with few moments of worth.
They exist merely because the plot (and the game) require them to.
I would have thought that these characters could have come with a lot of comic potential but none is present unfortunately.

Peter Dinklage voices Mighty Eagle

On the plus side this is a good looking movie.
It isn't a patch on anything that Dreamworks or Pixar have produced in the last five years but there are still some visually impressive scenes and on the whole it is a nice looking film.
The voice work is also very good.
Sudeikis is as reliable as ever as Red.
I am rapidly becoming quite a fan of both his voice and live action work and even support his name uttered in relation to a Fletch remake (note that I count Chevy Chase's 1985 flick as my favourite comedy of all time)
I also liked the work of Josh Gad as Chuck and Danny McBride as Bomb.
The interplay between the pair is very good - it is a shame that they didn't have a few more genuine laugh out loud lines.
Also as you would expect Peter Dinklage as Mighty Eagle is a hoot (no pun intended).
That big laugh moment is testament not only to the excellent animation and editing but to the voicework of all four actors.
Dinklage gets the more showy character with his legendary Mighty Eagle turning out in reality to be a touch worse for wear with a shaggy brow and what appears to be a beer gut.

The lake scene is the clear highlight of The Angry Birds Movie

If you are not expecting much from this movie it isn't going to disappoint you.
Don't expect the sort of quality that many animated flicks deliver but I enjoyed this more than "The Good Dinosaur" and "Hotel Transylvania 2" and about as much as "Kung Fu Panda 3".
It's nothing startlingly awful and nothing too amazing.
In fairness the finale is relatively spectacular with some good explosions and physics effects with pig buildings crumbling.
There is plenty going on in an everything but the kitchen sink way.
It does make a pacing issue worse though with the climax seemingly coming before any of the characters had really earned it with any sort of development or growth.
I know- possibly a ridiculous criticism for a movie like this but it is further evidence at how spoiled we are with the quality of 'kids' animation features these days.
Still- this is a perfectly serviceable animated flick that rises above its source material such as it is.
I get the feeling that it will be more successful with parents than the littlies though as many of the jokes are bordering on dirty and seem designed to keep adult minders amused.
Certainly I heard a few chuckles from adults on several occasions when there was no such response from their tiny companions.
And almost enough times I let out a couple myself.

RATING: 70 / 100

CONCLUSION:  Decent flick that does more with the thin source material than we may have expected.  Not in the same league as other recent movies but it is perfectly fine.