Review | The Angry Birds Movie 2 review: Awkwafina, Leslie Jones join fun and breezy animated sequel
- The Birds and Pigs are back, but this time they are united against a common enemy, Xeta, an evil bird of prey
- This sequel is littered with 1980s songs, plenty of visual gags, bright animation and very little subtlety
3/5 stars
Credit where it’s due: making a film out of a mobile phone game is not easy. Particularly a game where birds are catapulted towards pigs to cause mayhem. Still, The Angry Birds Movie managed it in 2016, grossing US$352 million.
So now comes the sequel, a film that deliberately – and wisely – moves away from the confines of the game. As the poster tells us, “frenemies unite” as the Birds and the Pigs are forced to forge a truce when a new adversary comes on the horizon.
The nemesis in question is Zeta (voiced by Leslie Jones), a scheming purple-plumed bird of prey who lives in the icy confines of Eagle Island. Fed up of taking ice cold showers and walking her frozen-in-a-block-of-ice dog, Zeta has hatched a plan to take over the much warmer Bird Island and Pig Island and turn these hotspots into her own personal pleasure land. To help, she has a super weapon that blasts giant balls of ice towards her feathery and piggy foes.
Out to stop her is Red (Jason Sudeikis) and Leonard (Bill Hader), the rivals from the first film, accompanied by Red’s sidekicks Bomb (Danny McBride) and Chuck (Josh Gad), as well as the latter’s brainiac sister Silver (Rachel Bloom).