Director: Clay Kaytis, Fergal Reilly
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 107 minutes
The Angry Birds Movie (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
28After the plethora of Angry Birds games it was only a matter of time before board games, comic books, apparels, toys and even an animated series were dropped on top of us. Nonetheless, it took quite some time before there was even any mention of adapting the bad tempered chicks to make them ready for the big screen, but when that idea finally came into fruition, the birds received slightly altered visuals and an entire plot was built around the destructive birds of a feather.
Angry Birds takes us to a trip to Bird Island, founded by Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage), a legendary figure that is rumored to be just a fairytale. The colorful island is inhabited by flightless birds, who believe happiness and joy is their biggest asset, but of course, there are those that don’t fit in this pretty picture of love and peace. Red (Jason Sudeikis), is pretty much Bird Island’s very own outcast, but, just like everyone else, he does his job and tries to handle things in an orderly fashion, at least until someone pushes his buttons. When, during his last delivery, his client only manages to complain, even though Red did his best to deliver the package, he pretty much loses it and shoves the package, a birthday cake, in the client’s face. When saying his farewells, Red tumbles and falls on the client’s unhatched egg, making it hatch prematurely. Before Red knows it, he finds himself forced to take anger management classes, together with Chuck (Josh Gad), Bomb (Danny McBride) and Terence (Sean Penn), taught by Matilda (Maya Rudolph). Of course, Red would rather skip these mandatory lessons and go to his secluded home outside of the city, but in a way it’s clear he finds the other attendees interesting.
Red is quite known as the village’s grump, he seems to be the only skeptical being when all of a sudden a boat arrives out of thin air, with pigs aboard. While at first the rather sociable pig, Leonard (Bill Hader) states there are only two of them, Red, Chuck and Bomb discover there’s an entire loading dock filled with them, waiting to bust out. Nonetheless, the gullible townsfolk believe Leonard’s story of friendship and allows the pigs to alter the city so much it’s becoming rather unrecognizable, while they only have one goal in mind: all of the island’s eggs.
Even though animated movies often have a shorter running time than regular movies, Angry Birds makes a bold move trying to fill the length of a normal flick. That being said, they do so superbly and know how to entertain the viewer from start to finish, by mixing up action, funny scenes and of course the necessary moments to get to know what lies beneath Red’s gloomy exterior. There are no dull moments to be found in this animated story, making the overall picture very pleasant.
It’s actually quite hard to determine if this movie is directed towards hatchlings, teens or adults, as there are many references only a more mature audience will get, like small tributes to The Shining and X-Men or the usage of older music for many of the hilarious scenes. All of this amps up the humor level simply by properly taking care of the background or by shedding a different kind of light on more serious movies.
Seeing Rovio has earned a buck or two with their Angry Birds franchise, it’s only natural they decided on having a rather impressive cast to voice their CGI animated birds. Peter Dinklage does an amazing job voicing the legendary Mighty Eagle, in such a fashion that you won’t even recognize it’s actually him. The other actors this movie throws at you have a rather impressive track record which gives the feeling, even though everything is animated, of a very natural sound. Both birds and pigs have been assigned with the right cast to do the job at hand.
The Angry Birds Movie’s Blu-ray release comes with a hefty amount of fun and interesting extras, ranging from deleted scenes (that are fully animated), to short clips starring the hatchlings, in-depth views to how the music was created to special features that will entertain the younger viewers, allowing them to craft their own pig fortress, dance along one of the songs and so on. Of course, regular features like making of featurettes are also available, thus you’ll be able to expand your Angry Birds viewing experience by quite a bit if you’re still in the mood to pluck some extra feathers.
Conclusion
While we don’t understand the mixed and negative reviews the movie received when it was still airing in theatres, we wholeheartedly suggest watching this movie if you’re into animation flicks like Shrek, Ice Age and so on. The movie is ideal for a more mature audience, as well as younglings, thanks to the healthy balance of mature references, the use of proper music and the slapstick humor that goes hand in hand with everything. Certainly worth the watch if you like a good laugh, without things getting overly complicated.
The Angry Birds Movie (Blu-ray) - Movie Review,
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