The Angry Birds Movie (2016), PG, ★★

Oh, angry birds.

You guys, guess what? Here's the pitch for a movie regarding angry birds. Let's have a bunch of animated angry birds that have piggies invading an island full of happy birds. But, a red angry bird has to make others bird angry to stop those green piggies. Ok, ok, it is not entirely original because I have played the app before and it is exactly like the game. I had low expectations going into this movie because of its plot and its animation. I am not the audience for this type of movie but this movie is another retread of the app that is a throwaway cash grab for the most of the actors involved. If there is another animated movie that is worse than this, it's going to be a bad summer for the kids in the cineplexes.

Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) is running through the trees and several other animals making it home to his family. He is a miserable bird that lives on Bird Island on a house by the beach, away from the rest of the flightless birds. He has no friends and has anger issues which Timmy's family, notably his dad (voiced by Hannibal Burress), raises and is put on trial. Judge Peckinpah (voiced by Keegan Michael-Key) sentences Red to attend anger management classes.

Red begrudgingly goes to the session and meets his teacher, Matilda (voiced by Maya Rudolph) and she introduces him to the other patients - Chuck, Bomb and Terence (voiced by Josh Gad, Danny McBride and Sean Penn simultaneously). All of a sudden, a ship full of pigs arrive on the island and a bearded pig named Leonard (voiced by Bill Hader) arrives and want to befriend the birds. Red is suspicious but the others interpret that it is his anger clouding the judgment. A lot of the birds' eggs go missing and the pigs are behind the scheme. What do they do now?

They are an angry bird team.

I laughed somewhat at the jokes which were some more hits than I expected but there were more misses than hits and I was astonished by the luscious island look and the vibrant animation. But, the story is predictable as to what happens because if you insert the material into any other genre, it would still be a pointless movie. Plus, there are many pop culture references that inserted into the movie that children will not get and many adults will get tired of. I have to admit I was a bit bored. I felt like I was playing on the app for hours and I want to just go out and live the remaining hours of the day.

Most of the voice-over work was good but I did not buy Jason Sudeikis as the main red bird because I felt his voice presence was not as angry as I wanted to be. I mean, why not cast Seth Rogen or Lewis Black as the angry bird? Look, for a movie that is based on an app, this is decent but it is still setting the bar low. I mean, we have two video-game movies coming this summer. The one I'm hoping will be good is Assassin's Creed because of Michael Fassbender, most of his movies do not miss a single step. But, for now, let the kids just play the app for 15-30 minutes and then go outside for the rest of the summer and play at the park.

**