Featuring The Voices Of: Jason Sudekis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Peter Dinklage, Keegan Michael Key, Kate McKinnon, Tony Hale, Hannibal Buress, Sean Penn, Ike Barinholtz, Tituss Burgess
Directed By: Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly
Considering the video game doesn’t exactly have a strong storyline to follow, I was fairly impressed with Angry Birds the film. I thought it would just be a cash grab, but I enjoyed it a little. It’s a lot better than that time ABC turned the Cavemen into their own sitcom.
The plot of the film follows Red (Sudekis), an “angry bird” who is sentenced to anger management classes with other angry birds, Chuck (Gad), Bomb (McBride), and Terence (Penn). Their world is rocked when a boat carrying pigs, led by Leonard (Hader), crashes onto their island. At first, the pigs seem friendly, but Red isn’t buying their schtick. So when the pigs steal all the eggs, it’s up to Red and his new friends to get angry, and get the eggs back.
The movie does a solid job of expanding the narrow story in the game, but it could have done better. For example, why reveal Bomb’s power early, but then later on it turns out a bunch of other birds have special abilities too. Like, surprise? Why is it never explained why the birds can’t fly? Why is the eagle the only bird that can fly?
The voice acting is good. Comic actors turning in comic performances. The writing is pretty sharp. I enjoyed some of the jokes, and the wordplay. “Piggyback rides” and the visual gag of a “Ham Radio” were appreciated. It’s a silly film, not really an emotional one, so if you’re expecting Pixar or Dreamworks here, then you’ll be mistaken. It’s just a silly 90 minutes for your kids, and you might somewhat enjoy yourself too.
Worth a rental.
FINAL GRADE: B
