The Other Side of Animation 162: The Angry Birds Movie 2 Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

While I do stand by the fact that animation in the states should try to be more versatile and needs to start mixing it up on the theatrical side of things, it doesn’t mean I’m against animated features being cartoony. There has been a fairly toxic backlash towards animated films for being cartoony. I never got that, because if you hate a cartoon for being cartoony, then you must hate and despise almost a century of animation and hundreds of films and shorts because they are cartoony. Sure, I’m simplifying the argument, but to me, not every animated film needs to like Funan or Coco.

Sometimes, people want an animated film to be, well, cartoony, like today’s review, The Angry Birds Movie 2. Directed by Thurop Van Orman, this sequel was a curious case of how they were going to expand on the original film. While not a great film, the first Angry Birds film had its charm. However, the sequel is getting rave reviews not only from critics, but audiences as well, which I don’t think anyone saw coming. While it might not be raking in the cash the first film did, a sequel to a video game movie doing this well critically is surprising. Why is it doing well with audiences and critics alike? What is it about this film that has everyone really enjoying it? Let’s dive in, shall we?

It’s been a year or so since Red, voiced by Jason Sudekis, Chuck, voiced by Josh Gad, and Bomb, voiced by Danny McBride helped save their island’s eggs from the evil pigs led by Leonard, voiced by Bill Hader. Every now and again, they launch stuff at each other from their respective islands. That is until Leonard and his crew finds out that there is a third island called Eagle Island that is run by a bird named Zeta, voiced by Leslie Jones. She plans on wrecking everyone else’s islands to get them to go away, take them over, and turn the islands into a water park. It is now up to Red and Leonard to team up to take down the threat, but they can’t go at it alone. Along with Chuck and Bomb, they also get the help of Mighty Eagle, voiced by Peter Dinklage, Silver, Chuck’s sister voiced by Rachel Bloom, Courtney, voiced by Awkwafina, and Garry, voiced by Sterling K. Brown. Can they reach Eagle Island and save the day?

So, how do you go about making a sequel to something like The Angry Birds Movie? Well, by getting the creator of The Misadventures of Flapjack, and go bonkers with the humor. Seriously, 2019 hasn’t really been the best year for comedic movies, and yet, here is The Angry Birds Movie 2 going the Mel Brooks route of comedy, and throwing different kinds of jokes at the audience, and they work! You’ve got physical gags, background gags, dialogue-driven gags, situational gags, meta gags, and you get the idea. It’s a theatrical cartoon that knows it’s a cartoon, and it will not apologize for it. I think that’s quite admirable.

So many cartoon fans want every theatrical release to be dramas, and yeah, it would be nice for some family films to take their stories more seriously, but at the same time, again, not every film needs to be like a Pixar drama. I found myself laughing multiple times during this film, and I wasn’t the only one. The entire theater I was sitting in was roaring with laughter, and while some jokes didn’t work, you would forget about them, because a good joke would then make you forget the bad joke. Of course, comedy is subjective, but the fact that the humor is hitting a home run consistently was a nice surprise.

 Animation-wise, it’s Sony Pictures Animation, it’s pretty good for what the budget has, the colors are vibrant, and the movements are snappy and quick, but not overly quick. The designs are fun to look at, and everyone is fairly expressive. It helps that the characters have a lot of good chemistry with dialogue that bounces off one another. While there are plenty of great voices and performances, Leslie Jones’ Zeta steals the entire film. She had the best lines and the best jokes. For a comedy villain, she really works. Sure, they give her a little more pathos with who she is, but you can tell they focused more on the comedy angle, and combined with some witty writing, she turns in one of the funniest performances of the film. While you can guess from the trailers that they do a “they hate each other but end up together by the end” plot with Red and Silver, they definitely do, and while I’m not a fan of the trope, Jason and Rachel do have good timing. I also like how the film does add in themes of overcoming your fears, dealing with insecurities, and becoming a better person for the sake of your own health and the people around you. It might not be as fleshed out as it would be with a team from Disney or Pixar, but the film does handle those themes well.

Now, it’s time to talk about the flaws of the film. While the comedy in this film is filled to the brim and bursting with different kinds of humor, I wish they would have taken out the jokes that were the worst part of the original film, the gross-out humor. Granted, the film does a great piss joke, but it’s the only one that works. It’s the same issue with Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, where the really good jokes are really good, but the immature jokes fall flat. The film also feels disjointed, as it has a subplot going along in the background that could have been its own animated short on the Blu-ray of this film. It also has some great laughs, but it’s always distracting when it’s cutting to and from the main story.

I also wish Gary was funnier. He has some good lines, and Sterling K. Brown is having a lot of fun with his character, but I wish he had some better lines. Josh Gad’s Chuck’s relationship with Silver is also the weakest and the creepiest part of the film. He’s the overly protective brother who comes off like he’s a bit, well, too close to his own sister, and I’m not sure if that’s intended to play off some offbeat humor to the film, but it’s awkward. While the film’s focus was on a more comedic experience, I wish the romance subplots were handled better.

Still, even with the complaints, I was looking for a fun time, and I got a fun time. I wanted to see some good jokes, and I got some good jokes. It’s a film that sets out to be this quirky offbeat sequel to a film not many cared about but ended up being one of the big critic and audience hits of the year. Am I shocked to see a few people be in the minority by not liking it? No. Comedy is subjective, and while I really enjoyed the film, I can perfectly get why others don’t. It’s a bummer that this film is not performing as well as I think it should, but I’m also not surprised. I highly recommend people go see The Angry Birds Movie 2. Oh, and you should all go see this film to support the wonderful short that plays in front of the movie, Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry. That short alone deserves its own review. So, now that we will have to wait for the next major feature, let’s travel to China as I review what is considered the biggest-animated film in China right now with Ne Zha. Thanks for reading my review! I hope you all enjoyed it, feel free to share my work, and if you want, you can show some support by donating to my Patreon at Patreon.com/camseyeview. I will see you all next time!

Rating: Go See It!

The Other Side of Animation 44: The Angry Birds Movie Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

This has been an odd year for video game movies. How? Well, how about the fact that we are getting movies that actually looks like their gaming counterparts. To be honest, I find that so shocking, since either due to technology or no one caring, it was always so hard for Hollywood to make these kinds of movies look like the games on which they are based. Too bad they still can’t be good movies, with this year’s Ratchet & Clank being one of the contenders for one of the worst movies of 2015. It might look like the game, have the same voice actors, and is basically the game turned into a movie, but it can’t save itself from sloppy storytelling and boring characters. That’s why today’s review of The Angry Birds Movie is such a surprise. It’s actually not bad! Released on May 20^th, 2016, this CGI animated film directed by Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, who both have animation film experiences, including films like Tangled, Hotel Transylvania, and Wreck-It-Ralph, The Angry Birds Movie is honestly the biggest surprise of this year. I mean, not a surprise that it’s fantastic, but it isn’t a mess on arrival. I think everyone was thinking The Angry Birds Movie was going to bomb, hard! So, how is it? Well, let’s find out!

The film takes place on this island full of flightless birds. The main story focuses on Red, voiced by Jason Sudekis. Red is an angry individual among a village of happy- go-lucky birds. After getting into an incident with a customer, he is forced to to attend anger management, run by a bird named Matilda, voiced by Maya Rudolph. While there, Red meets up with a few individuals like Chuck, voiced by Josh Gad, Bomb, voiced by Danny McBride, and Terrance, voiced, or grumbled by Sean Penn. While attending the class, a ship of pigs arrives on the island led by Leonard, voiced by Bill Hader. And if you have played the games at all, the pigs steal the eggs, and it is up to Red and the gang to find the Mighty Eagle and save the eggs before the pigs eats them. Can they get them back? Will the birds get angry?

So, what is actually good about this film? Well, the best element that the film has going for it is the bright, colorful, and fast animation. It actually looks better than what I was expecting. It definitely makes Ratchet & Clank look so much worse, in terms of textures. While the overall look of the birds might be odd with the feet and arms, the designs don’t look that bad. I also found the script to be not that bad. Sure, it doesn’t totally devoid itself from modern animated film tropes in terms of hip dialogue and pop cultural references, but there was a lot less of it than I was expecting. The script also led itself to some pretty funny jokes. Not all the jokes land, in fact, a lot of them don’t, but I did find myself laughing a couple of times. I think that is because the actors they did get for the roles of the characters actually put effort into their acting. It could have been so easy for this film to get actors who would do nothing more than play themselves. The celebrities they hired are mostly comedians and comedic actors from sketch shows, and I was praising the casting choices when I wrote about this film a few months back. And yes, there is stunt casting and celebrity cameos that really weren’t worth the money due to how few lines they are given during the film. Still, my favorite performances came from Jason Sudekis, due to how relatable he makes Red, Danny Mcbride since I’m a sucker for big dumb characters like Bomb, Bill Hadder as the main antagonist Lenard, Keegan-Michael Key, since, well, he is Keegan Michael Key, and he made that bird judge lively, and to my surprise, Sean Penn as Terrence. Honestly, the Sean Penn casting is pretty hilarious in a very meta way due to his past history of anger, and his character, who is a giant caveman-like angry bird. The biggest surprise from this entire experience is how much effort was honestly put into this film. This could have easily been worse than both Ratchet & Clank and Warcraft combined, and yet, this is probably the best video game movie adaptation of the year. Granted, we have to see how Assassin’s Creed does, but so far, The Angry Birds Movie has more effort put into an overall experience than the two other video game movies out right now. I’ll be honest though, Rovio, the company behind Angry Birds probably put their best time and consideration into this film, since they have been going into a downward spiral of popularity with all the recent financial losses and layoffs throughout the last couple of years.

With all that praise being said, this film still has a huge amount of problems. First off, the film suffers from the usual children’s animated film tropes of pop cultural references, fast musical elements, and potty humor. Can studios get it through their thick skulls that you don’t need to make a film around those elements? Like I said above, they really didn’t need to stunt cast so many of the celebrities due to how they don’t have many lines at all. It just seems like a pointless expense to worry about. The pacing also could have been better. Once you hit the halfway point, and to no surprise, the pigs steal the eggs. The film does waste so much time with this Mighty Eagle character, and that is such a huge disappointment. They get Peter Dinklage as this character, and unfortunately, the Mighty Eagle bit goes on for way too long, and has the worst jokes of the film. Oh, and what is with this film and its fetish with its butt-shaking jokes? Like, wow! There are so many butt jokes! The ending is enjoyable, since you get to see the birds fly from a sling shot into the pig’s kingdom, but the pacing during this scene could have been slower, due to how you can’t really take a breather. This is why when you get those quiet moments of the good guys trying to find what they are looking for, or running into the bad guy between the action sequences, it gives the viewers time to take in what has been happening.

Okay, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, the political undertone. A lot of critics have pointed out that apparently, The Angry Birds Movie has some political themes under its belt, with Red representing the conservative individual stuck in a liberal PC world, and some other elements. So, what do I think about all this? Well, while I can see where some of them are coming from, I think people were looking too deeply into a movie that has a Sean Penn caveman bird with some intentional or unintentional comedy with said character, and an extended peeing joke at the halfway point of the film. I think it’s unintentional timing due to the current political landscape. And that is about as political as you are going to see me get with these reviews.

Overall, The Angry Birds Movie is a surprise. It’s not a great movie by any means since it falls into so many of the traps seen in bad kids films, but it was still so much more enjoyable than a lot of the animated films that have come out and will be coming out from the likes of LionsGate. I have already seen the worst movie of the year, Norm of the North, so anything that actually put effort into the overall package gets my thumbs up. I don’t know if I would recommend picking it up at release, but it’s not going to be the worst purchase or viewing in the world or of this year. Well, we are going from a surprise, to a new modern day classic with Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. Thanks for reading, and see you all next time!

Rating: Rent It

Hit or Miss Trailer Predictions: The Angry Birds Movie

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz for more of my work. If you want to, consider contributing to my Patreon on patreon.com/camseyeview. Hope you enjoy the article!)

Welcome back to Hit or Miss Trailer Predictions. This is a series of first impression articles covering the newest trailers on animated films, and breaking down the good or bad that the trailer offers.

For the past couple of years, you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing something Angry Birds related. I, for one, am with the crowd that is getting sick and tired of it. If you think that isn’t true, then maybe the hundreds of layoffs of employees from the developer behind the popular franchise should be another reason to show people’s constantly losing interest in flinging birds at pigs. Now, of course, the franchise got to be so popular that they had to make a movie. Cut forward to 2015, and we have our first official trailer for the film that is coming out next year. So, what are my thoughts/predictions? Well, let’s break down everything. If you would like to make your own assumptions on the upcoming film, check out the trailer and tell me what you think!

 

Animation/Art Direction

Besides seeing iconic characters have arms and legs, the film actually looks good. Like I said, it’s strange to see the birds and pigs have limbs, but you quickly get used to it. I also like the fluid animation and the fast-paced humor. I know neither of those things are new or original anymore, but I think for a film like this to work, it needs to channel what made The LEGO Movie and Hotel Transylvania work. Have fast animation and jokes, but balance it out with heart, and a story with likable characters. I also love how colorful everything looks. It’s as if you stabbed a rainbow and let it all bleed out onto the CGI models.

 

Humor

While some of the jokes in the trailer fell flat for me, like the yoga skit with Josh Gad’s character, I found myself smirking at the rest of them. Sure, the jokes might not be original, and you can have predictable stories, characters, and maybe some jokes, but it’s all in the execution. Like I said, I found myself liking some of the jokes, for example when you first meet the bad guy, and the main lead having to deal with the little bird kicking the ball against his house.

 

Story

So, basically, there is this island where all these birds live, and a few individual ones have, well, anger issues or some kind of tick to them. One day, out of the blue, a ship arrives and out come these individuals called pigs. No one knows why they are there, and three birds, Red, voiced by Jason Sudeikis, Chuck, voiced by Josh Gad, and Bomb, voiced by Danny McBride decide to investigate why the pigs, led by one who is voiced by Bill Hader, are on the island. I think this movie will need to be clever since the game the film is based on didn’t really have a story. Hope it is clever, anyway.

 

Voice Cast

Honestly, I like this voice cast. You could tell that the company making this film, Rovio and Sony Entertainment, had the coin to bring in some actors that include Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Peter Dinklage, Keegan-Michael Key, and a few other actors. It’s interesting to note how many of these actors are from sketch comedy backgrounds. I think that will work in the film’s favor, due to how they can work off one another.

 

Any last minute good/bad comments?

I am not the only one thinking this, but I do think the film is a year or two too late. Instead of coming out when the franchise was huge, they instead come out when the popularity of the franchise is dying. I wonder if Rovio, the company behind the franchise, is basing all of their bets on this one film. Granted, a few bad business decisions have made Rovio go on a downward slide, but still.

 

Prediction: Unexpected Hit?

 

I am going to go out on a limb for this film and say it’s going to be an unexpected hit. I mean, look at what happened with The LEGO Movie or the recent Peanuts film. So many people thought they would crash and burn, but came out to be good movies. Granted, I won’t be surprised if Angry Birds ends up not being a good movie, and fails in the box office, but who knows. I just have a little more faith in this film than say, Norm of the North since there is actual effort put into Angry Birds. Now, how much effort that is, will show in the film’s story, characters, and acting. However, like I said above, this film does seem like it’s coming out too late. Don’t let me down, Angry Birds. I’m putting some of my faith into your film! Let’s me say this. This will be much more faithful in terms of an adaptation than freaking Jem and the Holograms.