Birdemic 2: The Resurrection

Birdemic was an absolutely terrible film! Some people consider it to be so terrible that it's kind of fascinating in its own special way. No one expected a sequel, especially considering how poorly received the movie was and how preachy it was. But, with the compelling box art this movie got, and the $40,000,000 budget, you've got to think, they could make this work! It might actually be decent! But no. This movie... managed to be WORSE than the first one! I wasn't aware this was possible but hey, I guess if you give it your all, anything can end up being absolutely diabolical. And that's exactly what they did! With this movie's huge budget, how they didn't seem to learn or improve on ANYTHING, I can only assume that this was done purposely bad. The first birdemic movie was cute, a failed attempt at an amateur movie which you're just... fascinated by. However, Birdemic 2... has no excuse. This is just... sad.

"Birdemic" is a notoriously bad film that is currently #8 on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Surprisingly, the same filmmaker decided on a sequel, as apparently he decided to bring us more of the same because there is an odd cult-like following for this bad film. "Birdemic 2" is currently #34 on the list....so obviously James Nguyen didn't learn much from his previous outing.

The plot, for what it matters, is about a couple of guys who are going to make a film. However, during shooting, a bunch of ridiculously unreal looking CGI birds start ripping everyone apart. The 'birds' are about as scary as a sock puppet bird and are sad to look at because of the 1990-quality CGI. Additionally, the acting, direction, editing and, especially sound quality, are just awful. However, the director has fun with it this time...tossing in some obviously gratuitous boobs, an almost funny cameo by a couple of tree-huggers, zombies, global warming and inserting an actor playing himself into the film as a guy planning on using this bird attack as inspiration for an upcoming film. So, while everything about the film is bad, at least the movie never takes itself seriously and appears to be a deliberate attempt to cash in on its being a bad film! Strangely enjoyable for bad film buffs but crap through and through.

Retrieve

Let me start by saying, I am a huge fan of the original Birdemic. I've seen a lot of bad movies. Battlefield Earth is pretty bad. The Room is pretty bad. Manos, The Hands of Fate is pretty bad. Birdemic trumps them all.

And now we have a sequel. Believe me, I was excited to see this. So very very excited, which no one I know understands. But whatever, I know what I like and I like crap. Unfortunately, this movie does not deliver. I'm sorry, but there it is. The major problem you've got here is that this movie is trying way to hard to be as terrible as the first one, and that effort completely ruins it.

It's like William Hung on American Idol. You just can't believe it and are mesmerized by how awful it is. But then he just keeps doing the same thing over and over, milking it for fame and money once he realizes people like that he's terrible. Yes, I'm comparing this movie to William Hung. And yes, like poor Will this sequel has hit the point where it goes from being amusing to just being annoying.

Birdemic failed in essentially every way a movie could fail. The acting was horrible, the camera work dismal, the script was ridiculous, the sound work utterly terrible. I could run out of synonyms for 'bad' just trying to describe the first movie. And that, friends, is what made it great. Here you have a work of art lovingly created by someone and thrust out into the world, and you just cannot believe anyone could create something so awful.

Now imagine that experience, but now it's completely obvious they were trying to make something that awful on purpose. The magic is gone. Birdemic 2 is not so much a sequel, as it is the EXACT same movie but with better sound and camera work. The plot is the same. There are many scenes that are EXACT recreations of scenes in the first movie. In short the movie is, quite obviously, trying to pander to fans of the first movie's unintentional success. It's like watching someone absolutely terrible on American Idol, but then realizing that they're just trying to be terrible on purpose to get attention. It's not the same. The magic is gone.

And, to be honest, decent camera work and sound kind of kills the hilarity. Plus I like Whitney Moore better with long hair...

So bad, not as funny as the first and relied heavily on not only the same loose plot of the first but also relied in the script of the plot of the first.

However

If the director was making this as a "without pun" comedy then he almost got it right. Further studying of Garth merangies dark place would help him.

Sadly I think he was trying to make a serious movie. If so shame on all the others for stringing him along !!!

So review is.

If movie = director and team trying to be serious

Awful

If movie = joke by whole team, not bad but not as good as first

The first "Birdemic" movie was horrible, and while "Birdemic 2: The Resurrection" definitely had a major step up in production value, editing and sound, then it was still a complete waste of time.

Much similar to the first movie, the storyline is laughable and unfathomably stupid. Prehistoric vultures and eagles emerge from tar pits in Hollywood and start a murderous killing spree.

Right, well that was basically the storyline, nothing impressive here, and noting believable.

But wait, it gets better. The birds were equally horribly animated as in the previous movie, giving the audience a laugh at how awful the CGI is, and not being even remotely believable for one second. And while we are on the birds, then I was impressed with how they exploded in a red mist when they were shot by guns, but also how they never left behind any dead bird bodies as they died, and most impressively the fact that they could sound like diving airplanes and explode in a horribly CGI animated column of fire when the birds struck a solid surface.

The people in the movie were definitely using proper Hollywood guns, because they never reloaded their guns and apparently had infinite amounts of bullets in the magazines. It was just so bad to witness.

But it wasn't just all birds in the movie, no... There was also a complete and utterly horribly animated jellyfish that was attacking a pair of kicking legs, that was supposed to be underwater. I use the word "supposed" here, because that scene was so fake in every aspect that my eyes almost started to bleed. And to top it off, there were these laughable surfacing air bubbles sounds. Not even a dead person would be fooled into thinking that it was for a second underwater.

And as if badly animated jellyfish wasn't enough, then there suddenly were zombies in the movie as well. Are you kidding me? Zombies? And they were in the movie for about less than 5 minutes.

I didn't know that dead people still breathed, but I was proved wrong. Pay attention to a guy in dark clothes who dies on a street somewhere around the middle of the movie; during a close up on him you can clearly see the chest heaving as he breathes.

If you have had the misfortune of suffering through the first "Birdemic" movie, then you are in for the same kind of wooden acting, horrible script and equally poorly executed dialogue in "Birdemic 2: The Resurrection". And not even the actors and actresses believed they were being attacked by these poorly animated birds.

I am at least giving the movie a thumbs up for the major step up in the editing, sound and production value in general, but it didn't add anything to increase the enjoyment of this movie. As such, "Birdemic 2: The Resurrection" scores a mere 1 out of 10 stars, just as the previous movie.