Most people will remember 2014’s “The Lego Movie” as the runaway hit of the year. It was an obvious corporate cash-grab but a brilliantly simple and heartwarming story paired with creative animation and a stellar voice cast propelled the movie to unpredicted levels of success, to the point where the people were shocked and upset when it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar. It was a formula that transcended the blatant product placement and allowed the movie to be its own artistic creation. “The Angry Birds Movie,” based on one of the first viral app games, does its best to mimic this path to success, but loses itself along the way.
In the movie, Jason Sudeikis voices Red, an anger-prone member of a community of flightless birds who live on a secluded island. Due to a court case presided over by Judge Peckinpah (Keegan-Michael Key), Red is forced to undergo anger management therapy with Matilda (Maya Rudolph) who can fart fireworks because that’s what the white bird does in the game, Bomb (Danny McBride) who can blow up because that’s what the black bird does in the game, Chuck (Josh Gad) who is fast because that’s what the yellow bird does in the game, and Terence (Sean Penn) whose dialogue consists entirely of grunts and is far and away the funniest thing in the movie. Not long into their sessions together, the island’s peace is interrupted by the arrival of the pigs, led by the mischievous King Leonard (Bill Hader) who play as gracious guests and fool everybody but Red before stealing away with all the birds’ eggs. With their pre-hatchlings gone, the birds have to rally behind Red, the only one who can teach them to harness their untapped fury and reclaim their unborn children.
Needless to say, the story is childishly simple. It’s the group of rejected underdogs turning face and saving the day while teaching their peers about tolerance and acceptance. This is not too different from “The Lego Movie” storyline, which was also aimed primarily at children; however, “Angry Birds” is much more mean-spirited and oblique which clashes violently with its comedy-based script, causing the movie to feel very confused. The script itself suffers from a major problem of being largely unfunny. A few prominent jokes slip through the cracks, such as when Matilda introduces Red and Terence and tries to refer to the latter’s criminal history only to be silenced by Terence’s devilish grin masked by flashing red and blue lights and the ominous sounds of sirens, but most every joke flies by with nary a giggle. Even most children will find this humor stale and repetitive, if not downright plagiarized. Chuck, in particular, is just Quicksilver from the X-Men movies. He moves at super speed, has the mentality and imagination of a college student, and even directly rips off the acclaimed kitchen scene from “X-Men: Days of Future Past.” And yet, among the cast of the movie, he is still a lucky one by virtue of having a character at all. Great comedic talent such as Kate McKinnon, Hannibal Buress, and even YouTube’s Smosh guys Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla are wasted in minor, humorless roles.
The animation in the movie features a wide range of styles, going from stunning 3D-renders to basic block shapes and even some very stylized 2D sequences. Unfortunately, even the best bits of each still look very unnerving. The pigs all look to be made of molten plastic and while you can see each hair on every feather of every bird, their eyes are always startlingly flat. The environments are consistently either too rounded or too blocked to feel even remotely realistic and the few 2D sequences come very abruptly and seemingly without purpose or reason.
The voice actors all do well enough but almost all of them sound relatively disinterested. Josh Gad seems to bring 110% to any role he plays and puts enough energy behind his performance for Chuck to be believable and Hader is a versatile voice actor who could make a stick feel like a legitimate character if he wanted to, but McBride and Sudeikis are used to more adult humor and their forced attempts at appealing to a younger audience sounds insincere and awkward. Peter Dinklage plays a McGuffin/Deus ex Machina as the Mighty Eagle but his performance is so boring and dry that I would not be surprised to learn he had done his lines over the phone.
Overall, this movie proves just how easy it is to screw up a cinematic formula. “Angry Birds” follows the same template as “Lego Movie” but with drastically different results. Whereas “Lego Movie” was fun and touching, “Angry Birds” is so false with its humor and tone that when it attempts anything nearing a heartfelt moment, it is laughably unbelievable. Even worse is the idea that this movie doesn’t even serve a real capitalist purpose. “Lego Movie” was essentially a feature-length commercial for Lego products, but “Angry Birds” isn’t trying to sell anything but itself. But the film is so unapologetically phony that it takes a very sympathetic soul to take anything about it seriously. 1/5
