Angry Birds: The Theatre was Packed with Kids and Still Quiet…The Kids Didn’t Laugh – THE KIDS! [Review]

Sometimes I make a mistake.  Like, for example, going to see Angry Birds instead of Neighbors 2 or The Nice Guys.  I’m just a sucker for animation and the colors were so bright.  I had thought “Gee, it’s been such a long times since anyone cared about Angry Birds, if they’re actually putting out the movie so long after its inspiration died, it must actually have something to it.  And then I saw the trailer, where being angry something that could be a good thing, it felt like it might be fresh.  Boy was I wrong.  I haven’t seen a movie this bad since the last Fantastic 4 was shat upon the screen last year.  I’m so angry at you, Angry Birds – I could have been watching Zac Efron shirtless.

Find out why the birds are so angry. When an island populated by happy, flightless birds is visited by mysterious green piggies, it’s up to three unlikely outcasts – Red, Chuck and Bomb – to figure out what the pigs are up to.

It’s not hard to see what went wrong on this one.  Angry Birds became HUGE late 2009 and with all successful things, everyone wanted a piece of the action.  So some smart guy sees the potential in a movie, they pay a fortune in royalties, they hire some amazing artists and design something great.  Then, as soon as they got the first draft of a script, they took all the writers into a room, told them there isn’t any more money and fired them.  Angry Birds looks great but it’s written like an early 80s Saturday morning cartoon (which were just commercials for toys and games.  What a coincidence.)

I’ve never rated a movie so low, mostly because a huge section of it is devoted to pacing.  Why is that important?  Firstly because it’s absolutely essential for an engaging story and secondly, because it’s the easiest thing see if you got it right.  You start slow, establish your story, the characters have a clear goal they have to get to and encounter obstacles.  Halfway through there has to be a change of plans or a twist, accompanied by something exciting, which should change the goal or at least how you get to the goal.  Then the action gets more intense and serious until right when they’re near the end it has to look like the protagonist has failed completely.  Then the protagonist rises from the ashes for one last desperate stab, where they either succeed or fail.  It’s really simple stuff, I didn’t realize you could get a movie into theaters these days without  getting that right.

I want talk about the visuals more.  Angry Birds was really appealing, visually speaking.  The characters would recognizable in silhouette, which is quite a feat considering they’re all just round blobs of color.  And the colors are so bright.  I’ve recently learned from an artist friend that it’s really difficult to work with high saturation, so that makes it extra impressive.  The animators also did a tremendous job translating the Angry Birds world onto the big screen.  The piggies looked awesome, especially their city.  

The voice acting was pretty good too, come to think of it.  I loved Peter Dinklage as the Mighty Eagle.  Jason Sudeikis and Gosh Gad were great and whoever played the white bird was good too – was that Maya Rudolph?  I don’t actually know the characters name.  Anyway, apparently Angry Birds didn’t skimp on the voice acting either because it all sounded really good.  There were some very funny moments (not enough to save the film, believe me) and those could not have been pulled off without talented voice acting.

So is Angry Birds worth seeing?  God no, don’t even rent it.  It’s not worth the time it took to watch it.  If I hadn’t been planning to write the review on this one (having already bought the ticket and sat down in the theater) I would have walked out.  I was so bored.  And before you trot out the whole ‘it’s just a kid’s show, it wasn’t made for you’, let me tell you I’ve seen plenty of good kids shows that adults can enjoy.  It’s rare I hate something more than Rotten Tomatoes Plus the KIDS didn’t even like it.  The theater was packed with kids and still quiet.  See Angry Birds?  Even the kids didn’t laugh.  The kids.