Director: Thurop Van Orman, John Rice
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 97 minutes
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
In 2016 we were presented with the movie of the Angry Birds, the hit sensation that pretty much put modern mobile gaming on the map. Nonetheless, the movie came out somewhat after the hype died down, but it still surprised us with its interesting storyline and slapstick humor. Now, three years later we received a copy of the second movie about Rovio’s creatures and we were curious to see if the story still had some merit or if it would fall flat. While the second movie lost a bit of its initial charm, we were still pleasantly surprised with the result.
The previous movie ended in the bird retrieving all the eggs the pigs had stolen. It seems some time has passed and that Red (Jason Sudeikis), Chuck (Josh Gad) and Bomb (Danny McBride) are now Bird Island’s protectors. There’s a huge ‘prank wars’ going on between the inhabitants of Bird Island and Pig Island and while it first seemed like this would have gone on forever, the pigs are startled by a huge ice-cannonball that was shot at their island. Leonard (Bill Hader), king of the pigs, requests a truce to work together with the birds to investigate the matter.
It doesn’t take long before the pigs learn about a third island, Eagle Island, where Zeta (Leslie Jones) pulls the strings. As the eagles’ island is a frozen and barren place, Zeta is intent on taking over the other two islands to serve as her tropical new home. She doesn’t really care that the islands are already inhabited by birds and pigs, she just wants to get away from her current living conditions.
As expected, the flow is quite predictable, as you’re presented with the antagonist early in the movie, and everything will revolve around stopping this miscreant. You’ll be presented with many different funny situations, a lot of slapstick humor, a big fixation on golden oldies supporting certain scenes and the bond between the characters. Red is now preoccupied with remaining an important figure in the community, now that he’s finally an accepted member of society. This makes him try everything on his own, hoping it will go according to plan. The addition of a small blooming love interest is also a nice addition.
Not that much changed in terms of the cast that voices the movie. We have a few newcomers to voice a couple of new and interesting characters, such as Leslie Jones voicing the antagonist of the story, Zeta. Awkwafina has stepped away from her rapping career it seems, as she starred in Jumanji: The Next Level, but now she also voiced Courtney, Leonard’s sidekick. The lovely Rachel Bloom plays the bright Silver in this second movie, and she also presents a pleasant contrast to Red’s personality. Last but not least, there is Sterling K. Brown voicing the eccentric Garry, the pig inventor. The latter does not have that many voiced lines, but he has a certain vibe that totally suits the crazy inventor-type.
The special features of the Blu-ray version are quite plentiful, but they are also directed towards a younger audience rather than teenagers or adults. You’ll have some mini-movies about the hatchlings, a few arts and crafts projects, some songs and of course a bit of how the movie was made. You’ll also learn a bit about the new characters’ voice actors and their personalities. We were quite impressed with the amount of extra content on the disc.
Conclusion
The Angry Birds Movie 2 is still a great continuation of the movie franchise of the peculiar flightless birds, but it has somewhat less of a comedic impact than the first movie. This is pretty much due to the fact that the director relied too heavily on creating ‘funny’ moments that rely solely on the background music. Despite the somewhat failed music sketches, the movie does make you laugh and giggle from time to time, and the story is still quite fun to watch from start to finish. If you liked the first movie, you’ll still appreciate this one.
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