“The Angry Birds”

Susan Granger’s review of “The Angry Birds” (Columbia Pictures/Rovio Animation)

 

How do you turn an app-based video game into a successful animated movie? Not a good movie, perhaps, but one that has box-office appeal.

First, producer John Cohen (“Despicable Me”) concocted a simple story on which Jon Vitti (“The Simpsons Movie”) wrote the silly, birds vs. pigs script. Then Finland’s Rovio Animation’s Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis took over as directors.

When he fails to deliver a “hatchday” treat and rebels against the happy camaraderie of Bird Island, Red the sardonic Cardinal (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) is sentenced to an anger-management classes conducted by Matilda (Maya Rudolph), a calm, free-range chicken who urges her students to therapeutically “paint your pain.”

Other rebellious misfits include Chuck (voiced by Josh Gad), the manic yellow canary; hulking Terence, whose guttural grunts supplied by Sean Penn; and the literally explosive blackbird Bomb (voiced by Danny McBride), complete with an orange ‘wick’ on his head.

Their ire is aroused when a pair of seemingly friendly singing-and-dancing green pigs – leader Leonard (voiced by Bill Hader) and his sidekick Ross (voiced by Tony Hale) – come ashore, snort around and steal the birds’ precious eggs to take home for a feast.

So furious Red and his feathered friends consult the once-Mighty Eagle (voiced by Peter Dinklage) and Judge Peckinpah (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key).

Vengeance is key as they flock to Pig Island, where the flightless birds devise a giant slingshot to catapult themselves at the oinking porkers to rescue their unborn chicks.

Amid the fast-paced, cartoony fun, bathroom humor, puns and pop culture visual gags abound – like a poster for Kevin Bacon in “Hamlet,” a book titled “50 Shades of Green,” and an obtuse glimpse of twin pigs, instead of girls, from “The Shining.” Unfortunately, it’s not interactive.

On the Granger Movie Gauge, “The Angry Birds” is a fitfully floppy 5, but Sony profits are flying high.

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