Remember "The Angry Birds Movie"?

My daughter has been home sick for two days, she has a mild fever and a cough, and today she wanted to watch a movie. I let her pick and she landed on "The Angry Birds Movie".

I have to admit, I had totally forgotten that they even made one of these. It seemed unnecessary at the time of its release, and I had completely let it leave my mind that this even existed. I also remember reading some reviews, and as to be expected, the movie was panned by the major critics. I had very low expectations going into this movie.

That being said, I did find some stuff that made me laugh while watching, I thought the animation was cool, but all in all, this movie doesn't even need to exist. It was not great. My daughter loved it. Let me say that. She was laughing through some sniffles and when the movie ended she told me she had a good time. I watched it from an adult and critics point of view, be that necessary or not. Like I said, there were a few gags that got genuine laughs from me, and the movie looked like a much better version of the game. But all in all this was clearly just a cash grab. I don't know when or why Angry Birds the game became humongous, but the fact of the matter is that it is one of the bigger phone games, and I'm sure movie corporations saw that and jumped at an opportunity to make some more money. They even got a solid voice cast, including people like Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph, Peter Dinklage and Danny McBride among many others. But those people didn't have a whole lot to do in their roles. Sudekis was there to be aloof and make one liner jokes, which he excels at doing. But the jokes here, for the most part, land flat. You can tell this was written for a children's audience. Sometimes these movies are made for kids, but the people involved write jokes for the parents that are watching. That wasn't the case here. These were jokes for kids, maybe even written by kids. Danny McBride felt subdued, Maya Rudolph was only there to act like a hippy and Peter Dinklage, who got the laughs out of me, was barely even in the movie at all.

As for the story, it was simplistic, which can be fine, but they went way too simple here. The game goes that the birds need to protect their homes from the pigs. That was exactly what the movie did, but they added eggs, which I don't even remember if that is in the game or not. The eggs were the crux of what the pigs were doing. And it wasn't until the pigs stole the eggs did we even get to see the birds do what they do in the game. And that was the climax of the movie. This was the point where the animation was at its best, but it felt too little too late. I did enjoy how nefarious the pigs were, and Bill Hader voicing the main pig was great casting. But anyone could tell the pigs were evil the moment they stepped on screen, even if you've never played the game before. When they did finally show up the tricks the birds could do, it came and went so quickly that I had to ask my daughter who did what, and we had to rewind a few times to figure out who was causing what damage. Seeing the birds do destruction to the pigs town was cool because that is what the game is all about. But, again, it was the end of the movie and it was only about a five minute scene. The rest of the movie was filled with corny jokes, for the most part, a story of why birds should and should not be angry, the main bird being picked on as a kid and the town turning and then regarding the main bird. You see, very simple stuff. But, my daughter liked it and the movie made more than enough money to garner a sequel.

Herein lies my issue with this movie overall, there's hardly any original ideas anymore. Every other movie seems to be based off a property that gained enough fame to justify the cash grab that is the inevitable feature length movie. Hell, a studio made an "Emoji" movie. That should tell you all you need to know. I will say, if you have a kid who's interested, you should turn it on for them. But for the adults in the room, it won't do all that much for you. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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