The Angry Birds Movie 2 (also referred to as The Angry Birds 2 Movie or just simply Angry Birds 2) is a 2019 computer-animated comedy film based on the Angry Birds games, as well as the sequel to The Angry Birds Movie. While it was produced by Columbia Pictures, and Rovio Animation, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it was also produced by Sony Pictures Animation, unlike the first movie. The film was directed by The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh creator and writer of Camp Lazlo and The Powerpuff Girls (1998) Thurop Van Orman and co-directed by John Rice (in their directorial debuts) from a screenplay by Peter Ackerman, Eyal Podell, and Jonathon E. Stewart. Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Tony Hale, Bill Hader, and Peter Dinklage reprise their roles from the first film, with newcomers Leslie Jones, Rachel Bloom, Awkwafina, Sterling K. Brown, Eugenio Derbez, Nolan North (replacing Sean Penn), JoJo Siwa, and Brooklynn Prince joining the ensemble cast. The film was theatrically released on August 2, 2019, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, in Finland on August 9, 2019, and in the United States on August 13th, to generally positive reviews from critics for its voice performances and humor, with many considering it an improvement over its predecessor, but was a box-office disappointment, only grossing $152.8 million on a $65 million budget.
| The Angry Birds Movie 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) It's a good thing that Rovio and Sony Pictures Releasing have finally learned their lesson not to make us angry again when it comes to making a movie-based sequel of their beloved franchise, at least.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
|
Why This Sequel Is Anything BUT Angry
- This film does something very new, and not to mention completely original and unique to the franchise as the pigs and birds team up to fight a new enemy that threatens to destroy both of their lands, even at the beginning at the film while still being faithful to the source material.
- Like Madagascar 2, it continues the story of the first film and doesn't completely rehash it.
- The animation is a step up from the first film as it is now more colorful and vibrant. Even the end credits were well-animated since it was done by Chuck's sticky note, unlike the first movie where it was used on the scene.
- Many hilarious and well-timing jokes are a massive step up from the first film's crude, low-brow, and weak jokes, such as the "Spandex" joke and the secret meeting scene, and every scene containing Harvey in it.
- The story in the film is very good since it takes place three years after the original where the Birds destroyed Piggy Island as retribution for the Pigs' theft of their eggs.
- It has pretty likable characters, such as Red, the main character, Silver, and the hatchlings, Zoe, Vivi, Harvey, and Sam-Sam.
- On top of that, Zeta is a pretty exciting and hilarious villain.
- The Mighty Eagle is hilarious. The most notable one is when Red shows Zeta, he starts screaming hilariously.
- Some new characters, like Courtney and Debbie are pretty fun, likable, and entertaining meta characters.
- The voice acting is just as great as the first movie, due to the first film's all-star cast reprising their voice roles, with newcomers Nicki Minaj (who voiced Sugilite in Steven Universe, and the fictionalized version of her from The Cleveland Show), Rachel Bloom, Awkwafina (best known for playing Katy Chen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Sterling K. Brown, Eugenio Derbez, Nolan North, JoJo Siwa, Brooklynn Prince, and especially Leslie Jones giving fun and enjoyable performances.
- Nice ending with a touching note. And it also subverts the audience's expectations. Though one could easily assume that the pigs were lying and planning to break their truce with the birds once they dealt with Zeta, they keep the truce and don't betray the heroes.
- "Let's Just Be Friends" by Luke Combs is good, while "Best Day (The Angry Birds Movie 2 Remix)" by Kesha is catchy.
- Even though Rovio is not what they used to be, this movie shows that they can still make good movies.
- The dialogue is clever. (Examples are: "There's an eagle nearby" and "Well, that's disappointing.")
- The flashback was very touching.
- Once again, the score by Heitor Pereira is great.
Angry Qualities
NOTE: Some problems were still carried over from the first film.
- The main problem with the movie is that in terms of being an Angry Birds movie, it is less faithful to both the source material and in some cases the first film itself.
- In terms of being faithful to the games, Mighty Eagle had never mentioned once in the games whereas, in the movie, he was in a relationship with Zeta along with him having a daughter, Stella was inaccurately colored to resemble her first Angry Birds Movie counterpart colors and her toons counterpart colors as well, which even shows the laziness of getting her colors right, and Silver's appearance looks nothing like her game counterpart, it could have been better if she had that hooked beak and gray eye rings. Not only that, it even retcons the video game canon by the fact that she is Chuck's sister, which makes no sense, given that they are different species and that the pigs had raised her (which confirmed by the official Angry Birds Twitter account), and there wasn't mention of Chuck and Silver being siblings in the video games at first (though Rovio confirmed the Silver in this film is a different one from the Angry Birds 2 iteration).
- A majority of the Angry Birds community felt that the film deviated way too much from the source material, such as the signature slingshots didn't play a significant role in the plot this time, most of the first film's cast were dumbed down to underutilized and not focused on in favor of the new characters (see BQ #2), resulting the franchise's main fanbase has been more divided than the first movie. It didn't help that the film was released in 2019, exactly ten years since the release of the original game.
- Many characters from the first film, like Judge Peckinpah, Eva, Edward, and Cyrus, or characters from the games like Bubbles, Stella, Hal, Matilda, Terence and The Blues were all very underutilized, barely mentioned, or not in the film at all so that the film can focus on new characters. Plus, despite being shown in the trailers, they are just shoehorned for only one scene and get no development time, which was unfortunately wasted and forgettable, even more than the first movie as it seemed only to exist for cameos.
- Speaking of Stella, like the previous movie, she ended up being underused, but here, it's even worse as she had much less screen time than in the first film.
- What's even worse is that the mid-credits scene from the first film seemed to tease that the Blues would have a major role in the sequel, but they appear in less than 5 minutes in the entire movie. The hatchlings' subplot where Zoe, Vivi, and Sam-Sam pursue their eggs could have easily been taken over by them.
- Speaking of hatchlings, the subplot of the Hatchlings (Zoe, Vivi, and Sam-Sam) trying to get their eggs back was a lazy rip-off of Scrat's subplot in Ice Age, and served no real purpose to the actual story until the final battle, but as a deus-ex machina. But hey, at least there wasn't a subplot of the Birds wondering what might happen during the voyage submarine of the main characters towards Eagle Island.
- The story could get predictable or just mildly boring for even unfamiliar fans as well, like the first movie.
- Like the first movie, the film heavily overuses pop-culture references and pop-culture songs (despite having decent song choices) that either don't necessarily fit in each scene, or just cringe. For example; the dabbing with Red billboard and the hatchling, the "shoot" dance, and "Baby Shark (Pinkfong Version)" only appeared just to pander to younger audiences which they tried to cash in; and not to mention, it already became a dead trend, being worse than the first one, and also making people hate this movie.
- While there were some good jokes within the movie, the film also has its fair share of gross-out humor, almost if not more inappropriate than the first one. For example, there is a scene where Chuck spits out water at the urinal when in the Harvey suit to convince that he was peeing on Vivi and Leonard insinuating that he's seen Red masturbate.
- While the film is hilarious, not every joke lands, and some of the groaners from the first film, like saying Red has a 'resting bird face', do carry over to this one.
- The infamous scene where Chuck, Silver, and Bomb perform an opera piece during their descent in the pig's submarine feels like a filler since it comes out of nowhere and is never mentioned again afterward.
- The revelation in Mighty Eagle's backstory that he left his fiancée at the altar, while not bad in general, is particularly divisive.
- Some continuity errors, like when Red and the others are in the secret meeting in Mighty Eagle's mountain, it is nighttime outside. But a couple minutes later when they jump to escape Zeta's giant ice ball weapon, it is broad daytime outside.
- Compared to the first movie, it can get frightening and dark at times, because it is directed by the same guy who made The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. For example, if the first movie shows how birds can use anger for good, the sequel shows that they can also use it for evil. At least for an eagle like Zeta. She's pretty upset that Mighty Eagle walked out of marrying her, meaning that all the heart and soul she poured out to make that romance flourish have been all for nothing. And that's enough to drive her mad to the point where she wants to make her world and her own life by obliterating anyone who stands in the way of her goals. She's so angry that she is even willing to act harshly to her allies and even punish any who do not meet her expectations, thus essentially making her Darth Vader-lite. Believe it or not, this is one bird you don't want to mess with.
- The climax, while pretty fun and epic as the first movie, can be incredibly stressful and sad to some people, due to it making it look like Zeta wins while the heroes lose for lack of fight, until the Mighty Eagle arrives, and Zeta's defeat wasn't that satisfying.
- While the animation has improved from the first film in terms of the visual effects, the film tends to use the same character model multiple times. Plus, the film might have character design inaccuracies such as Olive's and Betty's designs getting swapped.
- False advertising: On the poster, the main characters (Red, Chuck, Bomb, Leonard, Sliver, Courtney, Gary, and the Hatchlings) have been freezing by Zeta, but this never happens in the actual movie, probably because since Zeta's plan to destroy the both Bird and Pig island with the giant ice ball weapon.
- Bad release date: The film was released a month after Spider-Man: Far From Home and the 2019 remake of The Lion King and the same month as Dora and the Lost City of Gold.
- Much like Ralph Breaks the Internet, The film even had the gall to include Colleen Ballinger, in which she has a voice role as Roxanne in the movie, which aged poorly following the grooming accusations against her in June 2023 and the allegations against EDP445 in April 18, 2021, four years later after the film's release, although to be fair, this was the case of other pieces of media where celebrities and big names were revealed to be absolute monsters at the last minute, like Allison Mack (who's accused of sexual abuse involving NXIVM following the MeToo and Time's Up movement, and the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations) was featured a voice role as Lucas's older sister Tiffany Nickle in The Ant Bully, and Justin Roiland (who's accused of sexually abusing underage children and communicating explicitly online with them) was featured as a voice role as Rick and Morty's cameo appearances in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
- The film's underpeformance at the box office temporarily killed off the Angry Birds film series, and would stay in limbo until 2024, when Sega greenlit a third movie, after purchasing Rovio.
Reception
A vast majority of people were convinced that a sequel to an already contested video game movie was going to stink, after the announcement in August 2016.
Since its release in August 2019, The Angry Birds Movie 2 received better reviews than the first movie. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 73% based on 110 reviews, with an average rating of 5.74/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Like its non-aerodynamic title characters, The Angry Birds Movie 2 takes improbable yet delightfully entertaining flight, landing humorous hits along the way.". According to Rotten Tomatoes, it is the best-reviewed film adaptation of a video game on their website (until Werewolves Within in 2021) and the highest score for an animated video game movie. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same score earned by its predecessor. It received an average of 4 out of 5 stars and 72% "definite recommend" from parents and kids under 12 on PostTrak.
While the second film is commonly lauded for having funnier jokes and a more ambitious, unpredictable story than its more safe and generic predecessor, a common criticism of the movie is that, however, since a good number of fans felt that the film deviated too much from the source material, such as signature slingshots play no part in the plot this time, and except Red, most of the first film's cast were dumbed down to underutilized and not focused on in favor of the new characters, resulting the franchise's main fanbase has been more divided than the first movie. The revelation in Mighty Eagle's backstory that he left his fiancée at the altar, while not bad in general, is particularly divisive.
Box office
Despite the positive reviews, The Angry Birds Movie 2 has grossed $154 million worldwide against of $65 million budget as it was overshadowed by another Columbia Pictures film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, which lead the film to underperform at the box office likely due to being released in August and its accompanying marketing campaign making the film look like a rehash of the first movie.
Videos
Trivia
- Thurop Van Orman (the creator of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and writer of Camp Lazlo and The Powerpuff Girls (1998) is the director of this film.
- The Sony Pictures Animation logo is red and surrounded by red feathers which are possibly Red's.
- When the trailers revealed that the movie would take place on a newly discovered Eagle Island, fans immediately started suggesting the locations of the following Angry Birds films.
- The scrolling portion of the end credits appears to be set against the background of one of the tubes leading up to the lava injector of Zeta's superweapon, although this isn't exactly true as the lava changes colors, including to colors that weren't in the actual lava tubes of the weapon.
- This film was released to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Angry Birds.
- Around the time of this movie's release and the 10th anniversary of the franchise, all of the old Angry Birds games the movies were based on had been removed from all digital storefronts, and have not returned since (except for Bad Piggies). However, thanks to the new CEO of Rovio, there are currently plans to rebuild all of the games from scratch that don't require licenses from Disney and re-release them onto digital platforms sometime in the future.
- In the summer of 2017, production designer Pete Oswald stated that the sequel would be more of an adventure movie that introduces new characters and locations into the world first established in The Angry Birds Movie. While he was not in a position to offer further details about the plot and characters, which remained unknown until the months before the film's release, he expressed hope that it would be a better film than the first installment. This was corrected when early many people found out that Rotten Tomatoes got the highest score, but ended up being underperformed at the box office.
- Unlike the previous film, the sequel was co-produced with Rovio Animation and Sony Pictures Animation. While it was possible to reuse assets from the first film instead of starting from scratch, significant work was needed to make them compatible with new technological systems that were adopted in the past few years. The animators faced great challenges attempting to create more realistic feather systems for the Birds' plumage, even with the help of Sony Pictures Imageworks' existing feather system that was first used in Stuart Little (1999), especially when it came to designing the villain Zeta, the hardest character to animate in the film with over 1,000 controls, a very complex face structure, and a tall, flexible torso. The team also faced the demanding task of designing visual effects for snow, ice, water, and lava for the film, and production was also affected by the unavailability of certain animators who were being used to complete Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) months prior, as well as the amount of time lost due to Sony moving the film's release date ahead by more than half a month.
- During the releases of two of its previous summer blockbuster films, Men in Black: International (2019) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), Sony further promoted The Angry Birds Movie 2 by releasing Angry Birds-themed parody posters of them.
- It wasn't until after the release of this movie the franchise was considered worse by fans, with the removal of the original (during the 10th anniversary of the franchise, and around the time of the release of this movie's sequel to add insult to injury).
References
- In their Video Game Movies Ranked Worst to Best list, Rotten Tomatoes only included theatrically-released films with scores based on more than 20 reviews.
