The Angry Birds Movie 2: Film Review
Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Leslie Jones, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Rachel Bloom
Director: Thurop van Orman
The birds are back to slingshot and likely to catapult their way back into tiny minds, even if the older ones may be a little more resistant to the charms of the mobile phone based movie.
In this second, Sudeikis' Red returns, as the hero having saved Bird Island from the perils and pranks of Piggy Island.
Revered as a hero, Red's deepest insecurities come to the fore again when he's co-opted as part of a team to take on the insurgents of Eagle Island, which are threatening both Piggy and Bird Island.
An uneasy alliance is formed between the Pigs and Birds, as they unite to fight the common foe - but for Red, the enemy lies within.
Functional and occasionally funny, The Angry Birds Movie 2 relies on sight gags for its moments, and generally succeeds.
But it's never more than solid to anyone but its target audience to be frank.
A sub-plot with three hatchlings trying to rescue their eggs feels like an ode to Ice Age's Scrat and his nut that nobody asked for - and while cutely executed, it adds little to the overall plot and feel of the film other than to serve to show the flow isn't quite there and the main story is thin at best. This isn't a deep level movie, more a surface once over lightly to replenish a franchise. (Though a toilet sequence is genuinely side-splitting in its execution).
There are signs that the female led empowerment of Silver, the extra element into the already-recognised team is there to teach kids that girls can be part of it too, and deserves to be commended. But the female leader of Eagle Island seems like a step back in terms of women, no matter how well voiced she is by Leslie Jones. Its obvious message of teamwork and male insecurity can be seen a mile off - but again, this is for kids.
Yet, at the end of the day, the animation looks pliable, lush and squishy enough, and while you sense some of the cast has been expanded, along with the location, simply to provide a game update, The Angry Birds Movie 2 does what it says on the tin.
Nothing more, and nothing less. And sometimes, for a kid's film that wants simplicity, that's no bad thing.
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