Sunday 2 October 2016

The Angry Birds Movie: I don't know if I should be happy, or sad

Video Game movies... have not had a good track record, have they? Taking out movies like The King of Kong and Wreck It Ralph, as they're more movies based on video games as a whole, rather then being a video game movie, we're left with "gems" like Super Mario Brothers, the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies, Dead or Alive, Warcraft, and that's just the ones I recall off the top of my head, all of them I've heard of in passing. At this point, mediocre would put it at the top. So lets take a look at the newest member to the club of video game movies, from a game who's plot is about... throwing birds at pigs via a slingshot because they stole their eggs... Franchises have been made with smaller plots, so lets see how well the silver screen treated these birds.



I know I joked about it, but no seriously, that line before was the plot of the movie. In more detail, the birds have a problem with anger, in that its basically a crime to be angry. Red, Chuck and Bomb are sent to Anger Management classes, but during that, pigs from Piggy island arrive, put on a show, and once they have the numbers, level the birds' home and steal all their eggs, so its up to Red to lead the birds to get the eggs back. Some have viewed this as a portrayal of the society we live in, with most of the birds representing the political left, the pigs the refugees, ect. I can both see that, and not at the same time. Kids movies tend to have life messages in them, and all art is a portrayal of the world we live in at the time of its creation. I think it may be a bit of a stretch, as there is little you could do with the plot of the games, this was probably all that they could come up with. But is it it impossible for that to be the intention? Not really. It's possible.

The art style is very samey, it feels like I've seen this before. Not saying that its bad because it's ok, I've just seen this before. Its that same generic 3D CGI that gets used for kids movies over, and over, and over again. There's no unique art style, its just generic 3D CGI. Even the soundtrack is mediocre, as the instrumentals blend into the visuals, and the vocal tracks are just a collection of old songs like I will survive and Never gonna give you up.

The movie itself is just mediocre, but I don't know if I should be happy or sad. I'm happy that it is decent, and it is far better then many of the other video game movies, but... its angry birds. How did this get a movie before some of the mediums greats. There are so many franchises that I'd love to see get the cinematic treatment, and all of them before Angry Birds. When recording Gen 4 with Marissa I wasn't expecting it to be this much of a throwaway, its just mediocre, and what makes it worse is that being mediocre is an achievement. Anyone want another trip back to Kanto to see the adventures of Yellow of Viridian Forest?

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