Mark Reviews Movies: THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 2

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 13, 2019

Gone is any attempt to tie the narrative of the movie to its video game namesake, and more importantly, gone is, well, the anger. These are two vital reasons that The Angry Birds Movie 2 is better than its predecessor, which seemed to do the bare minimum in terms of translating the world and characters of one of the most popular video game series ever made to the screen.

The most off-putting part of the original, though, was its unfortunate message, in that it seemed to celebrate the idea of raging against, harming, and destroying that which was different. That's kind of the point of the game, of course, in which the player flings a bunch of birds with various special abilities at green pigs scattered across an obstacle course. It's just a game, though—cartoony and mostly plot-less and a minor diversion. For a story—filled with quirky characters and a lot of action and a distinct message—aimed at kids, the first movie felt as if it was going to be giving parents a lot to explain and rebut about acceptable behavior.

The sequel still isn't good, but it is much more in the mindset of a cartoony diversion, centered on a simple plot in which it's the villain, not the hero, who is angry and wants to destroy things. One watches this movie, also filled with quirky characters and a lot of action and a message about teamwork, and wonders why they even bothered making the first one.

This one does give us a world, although not much of one, and it's based on the world of the video game, while also tweaking it in such a way that it doesn't feel overtly lazy. The birds, having defeated the pigs in the first movie, now live in an almost constant state of war with their sworn enemies.

There's no kidnapping, though. There's no attempt to annihilate an entire animal civilization, either. At the start, Red (voice of Jason Sudeikis), who has calmed down because his fellow birds actually like him now that he isn't a fuming and feathery ball of rage, leads his friends into battle. Well, the pigs on a neighboring island launch a pie at Bird Island, so they have to retaliate with a prank of their own. Nobody gets hurt, and a duck, who thinks Red is calling to him as the pastry approached, gets some pie out of the deal.

One kind of wonders what happened between the end of the previous movie and the start of the sequel. The main hope is that the filmmakers simply realized that a movie series about an unending war between birds and pigs might be sending the wrong kind of message to youngsters. Whatever the case may be, none of the filmmakers from the original movie returns here. This one was written by Peter Ackerman, Eyal Podell, and Jonathon E. Stewart and was directed by Thurop Van Orman. This new team hasn't quite figured out how to transform a very simple video game into a worthwhile movie, but they have taken a couple of important steps in the right direction.

The plot has Red—along with his pals Chuck (voice of Josh Gad), the super-fast canary, and Bomb (voice of Danny McBride), a big bird that looks and acts like its namesake—teaming up with Leonard (voice of Bill Hader), the pigs' leader, to stop a threat to both of their islands. The threat is Zeta (voice of Leslie Jones), a purple eagle who lives on a nearby frozen island. Her scheme is to scare the inhabitants of both islands away with a super-weapon—a volcano that fires giant balls of ice. The heroes' plan is to infiltrate the island, dismantle the weapon, and escape.

Freed from trying to cram in the basics of the video game mechanics or the aggressive nature of the game's story, the filmmakers opt instead to use this basic plot as an excuse to provide us with a series of gags. This time around, there's less reliance on pop-culture jokes and puns, thankfully, and most of the jokes are just goofy to be goofy (although one subplot, involving some hatchlings trying to save some eggs, feels like an unconnected short movie shoved in to pad out the running time).

Take a lengthy bit in which some of the birds and a few of the pigs disguise themselves in a mechanical eagle costume, which moves in halting and unnatural ways (There's also a scene in a bathroom involving the costume, which is in gutter-level taste but doesn't apologize for it—while also giving us a pretty funny bit in which Chuck tries to make the sound effects of the eagle doing its business). Meanwhile, Zeta can't thaw any of her plumbing or personal possessions (including a dog trapped in an ice cube), and Red has to contend with Chuck's sister Silver (voice of Rachel Bloom), whose technical prowess might threaten his status as the hero of this mission.

The Angry Birds Movie 2 is harmless, which is a major improvement over the last movie. If that seems like a low bar, at least the sequel clears it.

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