The Angry Birds Movie 2 is Surprisingly Relaxing

The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)

The Angry Birds Movie 2 is better than a sequel of a mediocre movie based on an app deserves to be. It was akin to the tolerable Ice Age sequels, where the main characters you met in the original meet some new friends and face a new foe, all of whom are voiced by relatively well known comedians and actors. It is a simple plot in which the pigs of Pig Island and the birds of Bird Island are threatened by Zeta, the leader of Eagle Island. Zeta, voiced by Leslie Jones, wants to destroy the civilizations of Pig and Bird Islands so that she can leave her icy volcano island and live on their tropical paradise islands. Of course, there is nothing really stopping her from flying over to those islands because it is shown in the movie that Eagles are the only birds in this universe capable of flight, so it is just an insane plan for the sake of story. This prompts the birds and pigs to form an alliance to take out Zeta’s super weapon and the original cast is joined by Sterling K. Brown and Rachel Bloom as the techie and the brains in the mission. From this point it is cookie cutter family adventure fair with an obvious conclusion. Fortunately, there were enough jokes on multiple levels to keep the viewer from desiring a refund. There were plenty of bathroom jokes and slapstick for the kids and immature, as well as some decent subversive jokes for the more refined comedic palettes. There was also an entertaining side quest with some hatchlings that was very similar to the scenes with Scrat from Ice Age. Overall, The Angry Birds Movie 2 was a more than serviceable family comedy that is nothing like the game, but still has pretty colors. I give The Angry Birds Movie 2 7 of the 13 different types of finches Darwin encountered on the Galapagos Islands.

The best part of Angry Birds 2 is the animated short shown before the movie, Hair Love. It is an adorable story of a little girl and her father trying to style her hair before going out. It was sweet, funny, and emotional and it warmed the cockles of my heart. This short is my early frontrunner for the Oscar for Best Animated Short. Even if you don’t watch The Angry Birds Movie 2, I recommend watching Hair Love when it is released.