ANGRY BIRDS – Review

Review by Dane Marti

ANGRY BIRDS is a film experience of monumental proportions—if gauged by the excited kids in the theater. Basically, the story centers around an angry red bird living amidst a colorful array of other flightless birds on a small island somewhere in the world. The birds are all colorfully plumed and seem to be awfully well adjusted. Some might say, too well adjusted for their own good. I’m not exactly sure why the birds are unable to fly, but that must have been a major element of the original game that this film grew from.

Red bird is ANGRY. He’s hot under the feathers! Like many of us non-cartoon humans—at least I like to think I’m not a cartoon! –Red bird has seriously intense anger issues, and near the start of his amusing film, he finds himself in a class with other malcontents. It’s one of the funniest scenes in the film. These issues set him apart from the politically correct, self-obsessed and painfully unaware birds on the island. Of course, all the birds worship a legendary, mythic bald eagle.

The Angry Bird is definitely an outcast—at least until a bizarre ship full of gelatinous, surreal, neon-green pigs shows up on the island with supposedly benign intentions. No…they wouldn’t possibly want to steal bird eggs to take home for a massive omelet fest of monumental proportions!

Now, although the C.G. animated flick is a satire, I kept expecting the film to have a sweet, left-leaning message about being friends and brothers with all people, regardless of gender, species or color affiliation. That would have been just fine, albeit a bit predictable. Strangely, this doesn’t occur: and our bird (birds?) on the island must fight and defend their lives against the intentions of those evil, diabolical green pigs!

ANGRY BIRDS started as a video game franchise by a Finnish company, directed with flare by Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, written by Jon Vitti and featuring, among many excellent voices, by actors such as Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Maya Rudolf, Peter Dinklage and the legendary Sean Penn.

ANGRY BIRDS made me laugh out loud throughout its relatively short running time. In fact, I wasn’t the only kid laughing! As usual, there were many witty, clever adult jokes thrown in for the adults—including a rather amusing Shining scene reference. As someone who has a degree in digital animation, the design and movement of the Angry Birds universe is stellar – nicely created without going over the top—creating a nice balance of cartoon (especially old Warner Bros. Cartoons!), with more modern computer-generated imagery.  While not a classic in its field, and definitely not on a par with THE JUNGLE BOOK, which came close to being perfect in my book, ANGRY BIRDS is a solid, zany, fun film for children and adults alike. See this film or get anger issues!

4 of 5 Stars