Angry Birds: A Dad's Review

Many of you parents of younger kids are probably thinking about taking them to see The Angry Birds Movie.

My kids were excited for it from the first trailers months ago, and quite frankly so was I. I played all the games on my iPhone. Plus I love animation and thought the visuals of the movie looked fun. As a writer, I thought creating a story around the games would be an interesting challenge that, done right could be a huge success.

As stated, that could have been the case.

We took the kids last night, and overall I have to admit I was disappointed. On a scale of 4 stars, I'd give it 2. There are moments where I really laughed, as did my wife. My two oldest kids, 9 and 5, thought it was hilarious. My youngest, who turned 4 that day became bored and restless by the halfway point. Let me state she's gone to and sat through a number of movies so it's not just her age or personality. It didn't capture her, for whatever reason.

I also found at numerous points, it wasn't capturing me. The story was boring and the plot weak. They shoehorned a number of cheap jokes as well as humor that was clearly intended for us parents (usually appreciated) that fell flat for me and went straight over my kids' heads.

The bigger issue for me was there were a number of bits throughout the movie that really skirted dangerously close to inappropriate. Listen, I'm no prude. Go check out my other Twitter feed for proof. As a dad I respect the line between what's okay for adults and what's ok for children. This was unquestionably packaged as a movie for kids. Some scenes made me uncomfortable. Why they felt the need to have pigs performing a "cowboy show" that would have been better suited for another Magic Mike sequel, I can't say. Even a scene featuring a mythic character dancing before a throng of screaming female birds in a leather Speedo and signing a character's chest was just out of place. The bird getting the chest autograph did turn out to be male, and more importantly, it went by quickly.

Without spoiling anything, I should mention the movie features one of the longer peeing gags I've seen in a movie. It's up there with Austin Powers and A League of Their Own. It's also a tad more graphic than those, where we thankfully only heard it. Then there's the realization that slowly sets in with both kids and parents alike of what we've just witnessed our main characters doing beforehand, and it's gross-out humor like I may have never seen in children's animation.

That said, yes, I laughed hysterically because sometimes I do have the mentality of a ten year-old. Again, I'm not a prude.

In the plus column, the big climactic battle between birds and pigs is extremely clever and well created. It's as close as seeing an Angry Birds game come to life as we may ever get, right down to how each bird flies and the way the buildings fall. I enjoyed that tremendously. Visually the entire movie is beautiful. The animation is superb. And as I said before there are many funny moments.

Sadly there are just as many unfunny attempts. As a movie, it was just mixed up. They even tried to impress with switching up animations styles and speeds a few times.  Perhaps that's the problem with this movie is they tried too hard to give us grown-up's a wink and nod, but forgot who their real target demographic should have been.  Maybe they were worried they had a weak premise (though in fairness they didn't, if done right) so they tried to distract and impress us. They should have focused harder on story. I didn't even find the main character Red to be all that angry. He was more of an outcast and an anti-hero. His big offense at the opening of the film is flimsy. Story always needs to be right above all, or flashy animation and funny gags won't be enough (says the writer.)    

So take it for what it's worth. Two out of four stars . . . or feathers. See what I did there?
I can only speak for my own feelings as a parent, and at times I was glad my kids are still innocent enough that they didn't get a few jokes. Although I remember being 9 and I suspect my son got more than he let on. Which as a parent makes me a bit annoyed with the studio, Columbia Pictures. They'll never compete with animation kings like Disney and DreamWorks or even Sony, or Illumination, whose Despicable Me franchise is setting the bar for how to combine offbeat animation with good stories by giving us offerings like this.

I'm going to recommend just renting this one. Actually, when it comes to the kids, I'd just download the game and let them play for a while.


p.s. Lest we forget . . .