 |
Dude. Everyone is embarrassed. It's not the time for that.
STOP. Just... STOP. |
As the birds gather on the beach, they admit that Red had been right all along about these pigs. Especially Judge Peckinpah, who had been pretty antagonistic towards Red up to this point, admits that mistakes were made. The birds wonder what they should do… and Chuck immediately suggests to replace the eggs the natural way. Urgh! The last thing I need in my children’s film is an orgy joke. Can I say I’m actually pretty annoyed by Chuck being portrayed basically as some sort of depraved bisexual? I mean, if he showed interest in both genders it’d be fine, but then he always takes it that extra, icky step further. Parental bonus is fine and all, but some of the jokes involving him go pretty damn far. Also, it’s incredibly insensitive from Chuck, geez.
 |
| Not bad for a first sailing. |
Nah, Red has a much more sensible, simple and acceptable plan: Get back the eggs and give these pigs an ass-whoopin’. It may seem like they are out of resources, what with the village in smithereens, but there’s still plenty of stuff that they can use to build a boat. Red gives a speech to the townsbirds and manages to rally them to this plan. To top it off, the piggies left behind their trampolines and slingshot, so the birds carry that stuff along with them once their maritime vehicle is complete. As the birds go to sea for the first time, the pigs gather at King Mudbeard’s castle to celebrate this victory and the feast they're already planning.
There’s certainly a much darker spin to the situation once you realize that the pigs want to eat babies. This film makes a good case for veganism.
 |
| Pig city is big city. |
 |
| "Remember: Do plenty of damage on the way!" |
The birds reach Piggy Island and, to their shock, the piggy society is much more advanced than theirs. They have a proper city with a gigantic castle! While Terence plants the slingshot firmly into the ground, Red exposits his plan to the bird villagers: Get flung, aim for the castle, do plenty of damage on the way, go in and save the eggs. Simple enough. Matilda elects to go first, the anger management teacher finally allowed to let out all of her repressed anger at once.
 |
| "Don't mess with Bubbles!" has never sounded so threatening. |
The birds’ abilities are integrated nicely into this scene, as a nice bonus if you have played the games. Matilda shoots explosive mid-flight. The second bird on the elastic is Hal, the boomerang beak guy. Third is Bubbles, the kid that can inflate to an immense size after landing. A few more birds get flung, causing enough damage to the pig city for King Mudbeard to notice. Change of plans: the feast will be done much earlier, gotta eat the eggs before these feathered fiends bust in to save them!
 |
| "Never Gonna Give You Up" INTENSIFIES |
The situation is also being observed from afar by Mighty Eagle, who decides it’s time to come out and help. He hasn’t flown in a while, so he puts some encouraging music to get ready and… Guess which song Mighty Eagle uses. Guess. It’s the Internet’s favorite. One of the most famous memes of all time, even. Yep, this movie rickrolled us. I swear this song keeps appearing in the weirdest places. Before you know it, we’ll be hearing it in a Disney movie.
 |
| Ah, NOW that's the Angry Birds I know. |
Their attacks destroy buildings, but the birds can’t seem to get to the castle. Next in line to be launched, Red asks for the gigantic Terence to pull the slingshot’s elastic as far as possible. This sends Red much, much further, and he actually makes it into the castle. The large bird sends Chuck and Bomb in the same manner. Unfortunately, when Terence tries to launch himself, he steps too far back while on the elastic and the slingshot breaks from his weight.
 |
| All that's missing is Chuck going "meep meep". |
King Mudbeard sends his guards to capture the intruders, and orders piggy pilots to patrol the sky and attack birds on sight. Good thing these hams are dumb as rocks, or I’d be afraid for the birds right now. And hey, the avian attackers have superpowers to help them as well, as demonstrated when Chuck gets rid of multiple guards in a matter of seconds thanks to his super-speed.
 |
| "Our meal is winging it!" |
Red gets to the eggs just as they’re being lifted towards the royal dining room. The ensuing scuffle between Red and some pigs is halted by Mighty Eagle’s arrival. The mythical bird is told to carry the eggs to safety, and that’s what he ends up doing. However, when the three protagonists latch onto the net containing the eggs, the pigs catch Red. This tug-of-war causes an egg to pop out of the net, and Red lets go in order to retrieve it. No chick is getting left behind!
 |
| The final battle - an explosive confrontation! |
 |
Who had the bright idea of stacking so much
dynamite under the entire city anyway? |
Despite the pilot pigs chasing him, Mighty Eagle gets the eggs back to the birds. Red’s fight with Mudbeard topples the cauldron of hot water that would have been used earlier to boil the eggs, and later they fall through the many floors of the castle, ending up in the basement – which contains a gigantic reserve of explosives of all kinds. Mudbeard tries to cook the egg with a candle, but Red thwarts this attempt. A fight ensues and the candle is dropped, lighting nearby dynamite. Red is able to protect himself and the egg thanks to the cauldron, which toppled and fell upside-down through the hole in the floors, right onto the heroic bird. The king pig gets to see his entire TNT collection go up in smoke, followed by his castle and the entire piggy city.
The birds were distributing the eggs to their rightful owners when the city-shattering kaboom occurred. Red is revealed to have survived by staying inside the flipped cauldron, and he walks back to the group. In his feathery hands, an egg shell, and three little blue chicks with big eyes. The Blues, coming home to their parents. And this time, Red didn’t imprint on them!
 |
| Oh great, now the movie is trying to kill us with cuteness. |
 |
It IS trying to kill us with cuteness!
Ack! Urk... Feeling myself get weak... |
The birds return to their island. Now that they’ve enacted their revenge, it’s time to rebuild the village. And everybody helps. They even rebuild a statue of the Mighty Eagle! …though it’s much more accurate to his current fat bod. More importantly, as an homage to the true hero of this adventure, the villagers rebuilt Red’s house within the village. He’s no longer an outcast for them. And because this wasn’t enough, the baby birds hatched from the eggs rescued from Piggy Island arrive all together and sing a song to thank him for what he’s done. Even Terence joins in! “La la la”s are the only words Sean Penn pronounced as that character, for the record. After this ceremony is over, Red invites his friends Bomb and Chuck to come in. (But not before messing with them a bit. Snarker one day, snarker always.)
 |
| Dance party ending, everyone! |
The first part of the credits is set to Mighty Eagle busting out the old record player again, and Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” resonating across Bird Island, and even all the way to Piggy Island. Everybody dances, even the pigs. Meanwhile, the Blues escape from the watchful eye of their parents and find a new slingshot on the beach. Launching themselves from it, they discover their own special power! Roll final credits.
Alright, so I had heard all kinds of things about this movie. I’ll say this much; the first time I watched it, I didn’t think much of it. Not a very good video game movie, certainly not a great one. Perhaps average at best, horrible at worst – if your first impression of the film is based on the uncomfortable scene of Mighty Eagle urinating for 36 seconds, then yes, you would probably consider it terrible.
That said, after I gave the film a second and a third watch to write this review, I have to say – it’s better than I first thought. That’s still not saying it’s a great movie, but it’s better than average. It's grown on me.
Starting with the first point of praise I had for it: The animation is fantastic. The fluid movements and the sheer attention to detail – more than one could have expected from a feature about the Angry Birds. It’s also nice to notice the large cast of birds, many of whom appear in crowd scenes. Aside from Red, Chuck, Bomb, Matilda and Terence, there are lots and lots of villagers. The mime, Judge Peckinpah, Stella, the hugger, the family of greens whose youngest kid Red imprints on, the other Angry Birds with special abilities… There’s always someone to recognize from the cast, and there’s always a background gag you might not see on the first couple viewings.
This takes me to the second point: The humor. Taking full advantage of the cast, the movie always has something comical going on, especially by featuring one or another of these birds; the gross-out comedy here and there (hi again, Mighty Eagle. It’s also quite on-point in showing Red as a sarcastic protagonist. Mind you, if most of the gags land, some are still hit-or-miss. I had a lot of genuine laughter, but I also sighed at the annoying moments that exist to explain why Red prefers to live away from the other birds); and the barrage of jokes highlighting Chuck’s ambiguous sexuality, because we need that in a movie for kids, right? Not to mention the Piggies; their appearance takes the quality of the comedy down a notch. That was probably the point. Even their King says that they’re a bunch of morons…
Last but not least, the story. A lot of it revolves around Red, but also the community that surrounds him and reacts to his constant grumpy mood. The bird village, in all its cheery, carefree glory, is thematically important to the Aesop. It helps to show that Red’s attitude is overtly negative towards everyone. His anger still seems disproportionate when the pigs arrive (though they do break his house, I’d be angry too). It’s a sort of “boy who cried wolf” type of tale in which when Red had, for once, a genuine reason to be angry, everyone ignored his warnings. The Aesop, I suppose, isn’t about immigration or imperialism, but rather that it’s normal to be angry at some things, but that being angry all the time isn’t okay.
It’s not a bad movie. I was going in with a fear that it would be terrible so perhaps it’s my lowered expectations that make me say that it’s not that bad. But no, I do think it’s okay. I don’t think I’m going to rewatch it soon (I watched it way too much to write this review), but I can think of more positives about it than negatives. I mean, I still cringe for the 36 painful seconds of that one scene with Mighty Eagle… or the odd bad joke here or there... but yeah,I do think it's good.
(For the record, my favorite characters are Red - what a shock - and Bomb.)
 |
| He is a dork and he's adorable and I want a plushie of him. |
I won’t go see the sequel in theaters, either. At least, I’ve seen the few trailers that have come out already – the animation is still peppy and active, there’s still plenty of jokes, and oh yeah, King Leonard gets punched a couple times. That’s a plus in my book. This movie sees both birds and pigs in danger against a new ice-themed enemy coming from a third island…
Alright, that’s all for today. Goodbye!
Alright, so I had heard all kinds of things about this movie. I’ll say this much; the first time I watched it, I didn’t think much of it. Not a very good video game movie, certainly not a great one. Perhaps average at best, horrible at worst – if your first impression of the film is based on the uncomfortable scene of Mighty Eagle urinating for 36 seconds, then yes, you would probably consider it terrible.
Starting with the first point of praise I had for it: The animation is fantastic. The fluid movements and the sheer attention to detail – more than one could have expected from a feature about the Angry Birds. It’s also nice to notice the large cast of birds, many of whom appear in crowd scenes. Aside from Red, Chuck, Bomb, Matilda and Terence, there are lots and lots of villagers. The mime, Judge Peckinpah, Stella, the hugger, the family of greens whose youngest kid Red imprints on, the other Angry Birds with special abilities… There’s always someone to recognize from the cast, and there’s always a background gag you might not see on the first couple viewings.
This takes me to the second point: The humor. Taking full advantage of the cast, the movie always has something comical going on, especially by featuring one or another of these birds; the gross-out comedy here and there (hi again, Mighty Eagle. It’s also quite on-point in showing Red as a sarcastic protagonist. Mind you, if most of the gags land, some are still hit-or-miss. I had a lot of genuine laughter, but I also sighed at the annoying moments that exist to explain why Red prefers to live away from the other birds); and the barrage of jokes highlighting Chuck’s ambiguous sexuality, because we need that in a movie for kids, right? Not to mention the Piggies; their appearance takes the quality of the comedy down a notch. That was probably the point. Even their King says that they’re a bunch of morons…
Last but not least, the story. A lot of it revolves around Red, but also the community that surrounds him and reacts to his constant grumpy mood. The bird village, in all its cheery, carefree glory, is thematically important to the Aesop. It helps to show that Red’s attitude is overtly negative towards everyone. His anger still seems disproportionate when the pigs arrive (though they do break his house, I’d be angry too). It’s a sort of “boy who cried wolf” type of tale in which when Red had, for once, a genuine reason to be angry, everyone ignored his warnings. The Aesop, I suppose, isn’t about immigration or imperialism, but rather that it’s normal to be angry at some things, but that being angry all the time isn’t okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment