Angry Birds: Le film

Agreeability gets you so far in life, but when the chips are down, it helps to lose your temper sometimes. That's a pretty unexpected moral takeaway for a kids' movie, and it's just one surprise of many in "The Angry Birds Movie," a fast, fizzy and frenetically entertaining extension of the manic gaming franchise that, at its zenith, had children of all ages glued to their smartphone screens. Establishing a basic psychological motivation for the fiery disposition shared by the feathered folk of Bird Island, this irreverent origin story takes an appropriately loose, elastic approach to its larger narrative, with frequent detours to fill in daffier details of its mad, mad, mad, mad story world.

I've never played or cared about Angry Birds before, but I still decided to try this movie. And I'm quite glad I did, for it is a lot better than I expected. It is silly and hilarious but it still has a decent plot, moral, and some emotion. The animation is very lively and colorful.

The main character is a grumpy bird called Red whom I'm sure many people would find relatable. Life just doesn't treat him well and so he acts rather angry, leading others to believe he's a terrible bird when all he wants is some peace. The other characters besides Red are likable too and all have their own unique personalities.

Most of the gags in the movie didn't make me laugh out loud, but that's okay because there was still plenty of comedy to enjoy and most of it made me laugh on the inside. There were many adult jokes but most of them weren't blatant enough to be much of a worry if there's a young kid watching. The gross-out humor was distasteful of course but there wasn't as much of it as I thought there'd be; I expected more fart jokes but thankfully there weren't. The puke joke was unappealing but luckily it was only a few seconds; the pee joke is what really bothered me because it was really awkward and lasted way too long.

There are some heart-warming moments and character revelations throughout the movie, particularly near the end, but I shan't be specific to avoid spoilers. The movie mostly focuses on making viewers laugh but there are still other reasons to watch it, such as a nice moral about having faith in yourself and trusting yourself to do the right thing. Anyone who knows Angry Birds could have predicted the plot, and the moral's been done before, but it's still an enjoyable watch.

So I never played the game before. I should have done that before I saw it, but the movie actually gave me a pretty good run through on how to play the game as well as tips on how to get far in the game and how to use all the birds in the game, so that's cool. They did a better job at it than the movies Battleship and Doom.

Loved all the voice talent in the movie lead by Jason Sudeikis who plays the Red bird, with a hot temper whose force into anger management were he forms relationships with other angry birds, Chuck, played by Josh Gad, Bomb, played by Danny McBride, and Terrance who was played brilliantly by Sean Penn. They are the only one's who can help Red when he realizes the friendly Pigs that invaded their Island are up to something.

I loved the animation and the design of the characters. It's very funny and entertaining.

Actually it wasn't as bad as my review's title suggests. My biggest problem is that birds are not well-represented: they're lazy, gullible, or angry. And they're not even real birds, they're fantasy video-game birds. So if you're looking for an entertainment experience closer to avian reality, see, for example, Swift, or possibly Rio (it strikes me that birds are under-represented in anthropomorphic animation and puppetry). But what did I expect from a movie that tries to make a story out of a video-game app? Positive notes: my kids liked it better than I did, and my son, in particular who knows a lot about authentic birds, laughed hilariously at the slap-stick bird-launching from the slingshot at the end. And the idea that a society should listen to people that are stigmatized for emotional/cognitive difference (e.g. "too angry") is an important one.

This is a movie that I was ACTUALLY looking forward to see. I've been a fan of the game from it's inception and I've played it a lot ever since. I would never call myself a die hard fan, but I enjoy the games enough to watch any animations that come out of this product. Saying that, the angry birds toons were wonderfully made, that one Star Wars short they did was beautifully animated, so for this movie, I was at the very least expecting great animation with striking visuals. That is EXACTLY what I got, and that alone would put this movie on a 6 out of 10.

Animation wise this movie is BEAUTIFUL, probably the best animated movie in the sense that the visuals have been the most interesting I've seen so far this year. Surpassing Kung Fu Panda 3 and Zootopia, I find this movie so colourful and pleasant to watch, I could watch this movie on mute and STILL enjoy it to it's fullest

In story it is very weak. Mighty eagle in particular felt very cliché, do they do play around with his cliché character a bit, but not enough to be very funny. Also very predictable storyline, you can pretty much guess what's going to happen by just watching the trailers.

However, what elevates this from a 6 to 7 for me is the character of RED, whom I found surprisingly relatable. Keep in mind, I was just expecting this movie to make me laugh and entertain me a bit, but I found myself really identifying with RED's cynicism and arc. Being a grump because of how people treat him and have treated him in the past but still desiring to hang out like a normal bird with everyone else, even though he's unable to open up to start a relationship with anyone. So I was very pleased with his resolution.

Overall, if you like the game, watch the movie. Worst case scenario, you'll enjoy it but never want to watch it again