The Angry Birds Movie

            At a time when touch screen devices, such as the iPhone, still had people in awe at their freshest debut, mobile games were catching on as well. And we’re not just talking about “Snake” or anything like that, we were talking games that were bright, colorful, had animation, and all that kind of stuff. And the mobile game that reigned as king was “Angry Birds.” The game had a simple premise: you launch birds at pigs to retrieve your stolen eggs. Nothing special, but the thing caught like wildfire, with over 12 million downloads of the game. With the success, they made a sequel to the game, with more levels and new power-ups…and then there was another one…and another one…and another one…yeah, this thing evolved into a franchise. Soon, you were seeing t-shirts, posters, sneakers, and even cartoons, but…did we really need this to be merchandised? I mean, it’s a fun little game, but it’s not “Super Mario Bros.” or “Sonic the Hedgehog” levels of fun.

            Despite what I think, Sony Entertainment decided to cash in on the games popularity, which was running a bit thin with people, and make an animated feature film…really? Who looked at this mobile game and said, “HOLY SHIT, THIS STORY NEEDS TO BE BROUGHT TO THE BIG SCREEN RIGHT NOW,” like it was a last resort? Needless to say, this was a film I was not looking forward to, thinking it was going to be some childish cash cow. However, when I saw the first trailer they released, it got a few good chuckles out of me, so I had a slight change of heart about it…that is, until I saw further trailers, and became very skeptical again.

            “The Angry Birds Movie” is about a bird named Red, a bird with anger issues that the village doesn’t approve of, so they tell him to deal with them in anger management classes. While this goes on, an army of pigs arrive onto their island, who plot to trick the village and steal their eggs. Red sees through their ploy, and thus, he’s the one leads the birds to steal the eggs back. And don’t worry, I’m not spoiling anything from the movie, because they show you the entire plot of this movie in the trailers. This shows us that: 1) trailers spoil too much of films now; and 2) you’re not missing much with this film.

            After viewing the film, did this film manage to prove me wrong about what I saw about the trailers? Yeah it did…the film was actually worse than what I saw from the trailers. This is an example a film that does not know when to shut up. There is hardly a moment of atmosphere that is built, no moment of quiet, nothing like that. It’s just constant noise, like if they don’t throw in a stupid joke in every scene, then they’re going to lose the children’s attention. That’s not only an insult to the kids watching this, but any kind of audiences that it gathers, because it treats them like idiots.

As for the humor they throw at you, it’s not even that funny. Hell, throughout the entire run of the film, I think I only laughed about three times in the entire run of the film. I will give credit, I did not expect a pedophile joke and an orgy joke to be in a film like this…oh yeah, that happens. Aside from that, the rest of the humor they throw at you is just awful and uncomfortable. For example, you know that scene in the trailer where they swim in that pool and react to the eagle pissing in it? Yeah, that goes on for a FULL…MINUTE. And not only have that, but they even showed the urine trail…ugh. Also, did I mention this film Rick Rolls us? ...That’s not a joke, they literally play “Never Gonna Give You UP” in the film.

            Then we have my biggest problem with the film: almost all of the characters are unlikable assholes to our main character. I mean, I could probably understand it if he was acting like a dick to them, but while watching the film, his actions are completely justified, because everyone else in his village is a complete asshole to him, even when he was just a kid. They even address that he purposely built his house on the beach outside of town, and yet, no one stopped him. I would too, if I was stuck on an island with some of the most unlikable douchebags you could ever imagine. Even at the end when they rebuild his house in the village, I was like “Why would he want that, after all they’ve done to him?” Hell, I’m surprised Red didn’t do an “I told you so dance,” when the village was raided of eggs, because that would have totally been reasonable. Same goes for the pigs in this film. For a group of thieves that want to suck up to the birds to gain their trust, they really don’t put much effort in earning Red’s trust. They even wreck his house, and don’t even try to half ass an apology to try and cover it up. Again, completely justified actions.

            So aside from what I’ve said so far…does the film have any merit to it? Yeah, but only two things. For one, the animation is fairly good. It’s nothing ground-breaking, but it did look like something that belonged in theaters. It’s colorful, it’s fast paced, and has some good detail to it. And the other good thing about it was the voice acting. Jason Sudekis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Peter Dinklage, Keagan-Michael Key, Sean Penn, Kate McKinnon, and Bill Hader do give good voice performances, so I wasn’t just picturing actors in a booth. But after all I’ve said, it doesn’t really do much.

            Overall, “The Angry Birds Movie” was pretty much what we expected it to be: a cash-grab kids film with low-brow humor and unlikable characters. Despite what I say, it’s most likely going to get a sequel, which I’m now dreading. It was a nice try to make a story out of a mobile game, but trying and failing doesn’t get you that many brownie points.

Rating: 1/10