The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) Review
Three years ago, first-time feature directors Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly did a decent job adapting the once-popular Angry Birds mobile game into a zippy, though uneven animated feature. But the sequel, which is now replaced by Thurop Van Orman (TV’s The Powerpuff Girls, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack), has unfortunately failed to capture the vibrant fun of the first movie.
First, here’s what The Angry Birds Movie 2 is basically all about: This time, the flightless birds led by Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) unexpectedly joins forces with their green-pig enemies-turned-allies (among them are Bill Hader’s Leonard) when the crazed purple bird Zeta (Leslie Jones) threatened to destroy their islands from the frozen wasteland of Eagle Island.
It’s kind of sad that The Angry Birds Movie 2 feels like a series of loosely-connected vignettes thrown all together at the wall and see if it sticks. Sure, the jokes fly thick and fast, with all the expected juvenile gags and toilet humour aimed specifically for kids. But here’s the thing about them: most of the jokes are terribly dated and misses the mark.
The sequel also relies heavily on inserting popular song/music snippets to accentuate a scene a.k.a. needle drops. While some scenes manage to work in its favour (David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” quickly comes to mind), others such as Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait” is downright cringeworthy.
If there are any consolations in this sequel, the recurring voice cast including Jason Sudeikis’ Red, Josh Gad’s Chuck as well as Danny McBride’s Bomb and Bill Hader’s Leonard did a fine job reprising their respective roles. The same also goes with the newcomers to the franchise, as Rachel Bloom’s smart and geeky female bird Silver and Leslie Jones’ mean-spirited Zeta add a nice comedic touch to the sequel. The former even has wonderful love-hate chemistry with Jason Sudeikis’ Red.
Whereas the main storyline is mostly hit-and-miss affair, it’s kind of ironic that the subplot involving a trio of cute little hatchlings’ quest on locating their misplaced eggs fares better in comparison. This is one of the very few scenes that Thurop Van Orman manages to inject a reasonable amount of worthwhile comedy moments. Now, if only the rest of the movie is as good as the aforementioned subplot, The Angry Birds Movie 2 would have ended up a worthy sequel.
