Movie Review: The Angry Birds Movie 2

The Angry Birds Movie 2 ** / *****

Directed by: Thurop Van Orman.

Written by: Peter Ackerman and Eyal Podell and Jonathon E. Stewart.

Starring: Jason Sudeikis (Red), Rachel Bloom (Silver), Bill Hader (Leonard), Danny McBride (Bomb), Josh Gad (Chuck), Leslie Jones (Zeta), Peter Dinklage (Mighty Eagle), Awkwafina (Courtney), Sterling K. Brown (Garry),

Tiffany Haddish (Debbie), Maya Rudolph (Matilda), Dove Cameron (Ella), Eugenio Derbez (Glenn), Nicki Minaj (Pinky), Pete Davidson (Jerry), Zach Woods (Carl), Colleen Ballinger (Roxanne), JoJo Siwa (J), David Dobrik (Axel), Lil Rel Howery (Brad Eagleburger), Brooklynn Prince (Zoe), Beck Bennett (Alex), Anthony Padilla (Hal).

 

Even more than the first Angry Birds film, The Angry Birds Movie 2 seems designed specifically with the short attention span of children in mind. The film pretty much lacks any narrative flow as it bongs around at light speed to one random joke after another, one random action set piece after another. None of it really holds together in any meaningful way. Perhaps that would work if any of those set pieces were better – but they aren’t really. The film mainly loud, colorful and incoherent for me – so even if my kids liked it (and then did) I don’t much care. This film actively annoyed me in a way most kids fare doesn’t.

 

The sequel to the 2016 film finds our hero from that one Red (Jason Sudeikis) basking in the afterglow of being the hero, and being loved for the first time. He and his buddies Chuck and Bomb (Josh Gad and Danny McBride) spend their time “protecting” Bird Island from their arch enemies on Pig Island – but it’s basically nothing more than a prank war – no one is really trying to harm anyone. But then the Pigs – led by Leonard (Bill Hader) call for a truce. And that’s because they’ve discovered a third Island – Eagle Island – which is basically a frozen volcano. The leader of the Eagles, Zeta (Leslie Jones) – has been firing ice balls at the Pigs and the Birds – wanting their warmer islands for the Eagles.

 

Perhaps because there was backlash somewhere (I don’t remember seeing any, but who knows) – this movie adds quite a few new characters – almost all of them women, and almost all of them well-cast by talented, funny women who aren’t given much to do. Rachel Blooms fares best as Silver – the engineering genius (and Chuck’s sister) recruited to the team, who immediately clashes with Red (so, you know, they’ll fall in love). Bloom has expert comic timing, and Silver is easily the best thing about the movie (although the fact they didn’t find an excuse for the multi-talented Bloom to sing is inexcusable). Leslie Jones does good enough vocal work as Zeta that I want to see her do more of it – in a role that it far better written than this one is. But hey, she at least gets a lot more to do than the Tiffany Haddish or Awkafina – both of whom are completely wasted.

 

The film seems to have been randomly constructed around a few jokes and action sequences - many don’t really fit together. There’s a whole subplot involving young hatchlings trying to recover some eggs they lost – the films attempt perhaps to give this series a Scrat from Ice Age. It’s so jarring and random whenever we cut to them its distracting (it would be worse if they weren’t so cute, but they are). The film also never finds the right balance between kid and adult humor – there are jokes here that are clearly just for adults, that don’t fit in with the rest of the movie.

 

In general, I was bored and restless throughout the movie. None of it really worked for me – it was all just too chaotic and silly to land in any real way with me. Yes, my kids liked it. My kids have also forced me to watch all three Descendants movie on repeat for the past two weeks though (all of which are WAY better than this movie by the way – at least they trust kids can follow a story). Here, it seems like the film just wanting to keep moving faster and faster, keep the juvenile jokes and fast moving action sequences coming a mile a minute. The film basically exhausted me – and not in a good way.