Review of The Angry Birds Movie (2016) by Stuart F — 15 Dec 2016

Angry Birds review. Making a movie based on a mobile game seems silly but this particular app has so many great little characters and is rooted in a nice, simple story that the movie could actually be decent.

And in a lot of ways it is. There are 3 or 4 main bird characters who all have a cool friendship and work really well together. The story moves along at a fair pace and has quite a few funny moments. The main game derived scenes where birds are being launched with catapults at pigs hiding in towers are very cool.

And the animation is top notch. Based on the quality of the movie visually you could easily mistake this movie for a Disney or Dreamworks animation rather than a studio creating its first movie. But I have to say I thoroughly disliked this film.

It seems that a writer from Rovio has decided that thanks to Shrek all kids animations need to also aim their content at adults. But unlike Shrek, you don't have to be clever about it anymore, you can just go for pure smut.

This movie has SO many sexual references and a lot of hidden swearing. With the swearing it is taking common phrases and adding cute bird themes over the top. Like being annoyed with everyone and saying "Pluck my life".

But the sexual connotations branches from just suggestive moves ALL THE TIME, to artwork depicting animals engaged in group sex, to labelling a constantly hugging bird a pedophile, to having erotic dreams of your hero, spying on a woman in a spa using binoculars, and pigs performing a Full Monty strip dance.

There is a scene where a main hero is watched urinating into a lake for a full minute. Austin Powers did a similar scene and kept it going to make it funnier. But Angry Birds actually shows you the yellow urine coming from between the birds legs and therefore is actually more uncomfortable to watch than Austin Powers.

And this is a kids movie. I know it is a kids movie because every second person in the cinema tonight was under 7 years old. The thing is that most of what I have just said goes completely over the heads of the children.

My own kids came out of the movie having really enjoyed it and I didn't want to burst their bubble with my own frustration. But I can't help but think that this movie took the whole "put adult content in kids movies" too far.

And if you were watching this movie with a 12 to 15 year old the content wouldn't go over their head. I don't normally tell you what to do in my reviews, I just let you know what I think. But I would actually say to you to not go and see this movie and instead wait for something that is clever and well crafted.

Your children deserve better.