The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) - Movie Review

This is going to be a difficult film to write about. Not because it’s the latest cinematic addition to a franchise that really shouldn’t exist, given the highly disposable nature of its source video game series. Not because it’s a follow-up to a film that I gave a fair amount of slack to while everyone else was gawking at the utter memeage of its soundtrack (Limp Bizkit’s Behind Blue Eyes is one of those songs that shouldn’t be in any movie). Not even because of my recurring issue with family films about talking animals. Rather, it’s because this film defies any semblance of a ‘good or bad’ binary, as it sits snugly in both at the exact same time. Read on and I’ll try and explain.

The Angry Birds Movie (2016) - Movie Review

With all that I’ve willingly come across, I’ve mostly detached from any feeling that a particular film has something against me personally. Sure, films like Mommy and God’s Not Dead offend certain aspects of my being, but I mean just in terms of the film’s existence itself. This is a marked difference to that. When the trailer came out, and a long while until I discovered the existence of an Emoji movie (no, I'm not kidding), I wanted to throw my hands up and officially declare that Hollywood has run out of ideas. Then the posters started cropping up everywhere, complete with the slogan “Why so angry?” like Rovio was actively trying to taunt me. As if the prospect of a film based on one of the most inexplicably popular and bugged beyond belief mobile games wasn’t daunting enough. What makes this even weirder is that this notion of the film trying to make me hate it? It isn’t exclusive to the marketing. Let’s dive in and I’ll explain.