Film Review: Funny, Yet Frantic “Angry Birds” Fails to Take Flight

By Editor May 20, 2016 09:00

By Anthony Hernandez

The Angry Birds Movie was far funnier than expected – unfortunately, the feather-light plot, confusing messaging, and with much of the humor reliant on rude sight gags that seem to go on endlessly – the film just doesn’t take off, rather dive bombs toward an overblown climax of total chaos. I guess we should’ve expected nothing more from a film adaptation of a mobile app game about angry, flightless birds slingshotting themselves into shoddily made towers, castles and battlements erected by green pigs.

On an island populated (almost) entirely by happy, flightless birds – Red (Jason Sudeikis), Chuck (Josh Gad), and Bomb (Danny McBride), have always been outsiders due to their own unique “anger management” issues. But when the island is visited by a shipload of green pigs, it’s up to the unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are planning – and it isn’t good.

Rather than delve into something a little more thoughtful or interesting, most of the film’s more odd plot and character elements were simply explained away tongue-in-cheek. This works for the first dozen or so times, until it starts smell a little rotten. Also, as mentioned before, much of the humor is reliant on rude (sometimes downright crude) sight gags that – because of the amount of time spent lingering on the same joke – it goes from being a little (maybe a lot) funny, to groan inducing with a side of eye-rolling.

I will say, however, the filmmaker’s devotion to these bits is commendable. One joke – let’s just say it involves “water” – in particular, was multilayered, with the first part (funny enough on its own) going on for what felt like forever – successfully squeezing every laugh it could out of me. A minute or so later, the joke’s second part began – and I realized that everything that transpired over the last five minutes was incredibly all set-up. Unfortunately, the set-up was funny. The final punch line kind of wasn’t.

There are many animated films that successfully blend adult humor with stuff the kids will get – this isn’t one of them. The jokes for mom and dad are glaringly so, and the kid jokes are mostly juvenile. There is little balance, and even less of a story, and it makes the film feel frantic. The animation is gorgeous however – colorful, fluid, and with lots to look at. The 3D elements were few and far between; again, merely an excuse to charge a premium price. There was nothing immersive about it – just the occasional egg or beak in your face. You lose nothing by seeing it in the standard format.

On a little more nefarious note, it could be argued that Angry Birds is chock full of symbolism regarding “American greatness” and “the evils of migrants” – until it actually isn’t. Even if that were the hidden meaning beneath all the silliness, it is barely held together by a plot that isn’t sure where it’s trying to go in a film that isn’t sure what exactly it’s trying to say.