The Angry Birds Movie

Overview

First it was the smartphone game no one could've guessed they'd get addicted to. Now it's a film that spins a story around a flightless flock of feathered friends, their unhappy attitude, and a posse of porky interlopers. We're talking, of course, about Angry Birds, an animated effort that not only brings the must-have app of 2009 to the big screen, but also comes up with an origin tale to explain its feuding characters.

When we first meet Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis), he's certainly far from chirpy, preferring to live on the outskirts of his island community. Despite working as a clown, he's more likely to incite rage than inspire laughs — and after doing just that at a hatch-day party, he's sent to anger management. There, alongside the speedy Chuck (Josh Gad) and explosive Bomb (Danny McBride), he's taught to control his temper, or at least try to. But then a ship bearing green pigs arrives, with their leader Leonard (Bill Hader) attempting to charm the birds with parties and presents. Instantly suspicious, Red soon discovers that his anger has other uses.

Although there's certainly a message about accepting the good with the bad bundled into The Angry Birds Movie, if you're looking for a nuanced look at the emotional spectrum, you'd be better off sticking with Inside Out. This is a bright and busy effort that sticks to the usual all-ages recipe: slap together a breezy narrative, throw in a wealth of pop culture references to everything from The Shining to 50 Shades of Grey, add a soundtrack that's designed to appeal to ironic Rick Astley lovers as much as pre-teen Demi Lovato fans, and keep things moving as fast as humanly possible.

Indeed, as questionable as making a movie out of Angry Birds may seem, its source of inspiration isn't the feature's main problem. A lack of energy and enthusiasm is — though given that the film remains bouncy and bubbly from start to finish, it might not initially appear that way. Alas, as The LEGO Movie proved, there's a difference between shoehorning in the required brand elements and demonstrating a true understanding of why people like the original product. Directors Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis don't concern themselves with that; they're content to plaster on the movie equivalent of a fake smile, and try not to make too much of a flap.

That leaves the eye-popping visuals, along with a voice cast that includes Keegan-Michael Key, Maya Rudolph and Sean Penn, to do too much heavy lifting — and while everything looks and sounds the part, it also feels quite hollow. Perhaps two of writer Jon Vitti's past credits sum up the feature's fortunes best, with the scribe's background including episodes of The Simpsons along with a couple of the Alvin and the Chipmunks films. Sadly, The Angry Birds Movie has much more in common with the lazy cheesiness of the latter than the clever comedy of the former.