The Angry Birds Movie 2

After saving Bird Island from the neighbouring Piggy Island, Red (Jason Sudeikis) becomes a local celebrity. The Angry Birds and Bad Piggies continue to wage war until the leader of the latter, King Mudbeard, aka Leonard (Bill Hader), offers a truce. Piggy and Bird Islands then become the target of a mysterious, arctic island ruled by Zeta (Leslie Jones). The Birds and Pigs must work together and form a team in order to save their worlds from destruction.

As far as video game adaptations for film go, the success of the first ‘Angry Birds Movie’ is nothing to sniff at. It made $352.3 million in the box office against its $73 million budget, making it much more profitable than ‘Warcraft’ or ‘Assassin’s Creed’. Numbers aside, as far as sequels go, ‘The Angry Birds Movie 2’ is about what you’d expect in terms of expanding out the world and introducing new faces while retaining old favourites. Where the follow-up really gets it right though is in its charming characters and infectious sense of humour.

While often silly and childish, ‘The Angry Birds Movie 2’ throws in a surprising number of more adult themed jokes. One scene involves an awkward run-in at a urinal. Elsewhere there’s a class 90s flashback. There are references that just the grown-ups will get, such as the use of the ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ theme. Actually, the soundtrack deserves praise in general as such tunes as ‘Eye of the Tiger’, ‘Turn Down for What’, ‘Hello’, and ‘Final Countdown’ are expertly used.

Lead character Red continues to be a likeable grump while his BFFs Chuck (voiced by Josh Gad) and Bomb (Danny McBride) are more charming than irritating, which is also surprising. New character Silver (Rachel Bloom – ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’) proves a sweet addition and good influence on Red as she encourages him to ease off his domineering persona and fears of being alone. Peter Dinklage’s Mighty Eagle also returns while other cast additions include Nicki Minaj, Awkwafina and Sterling K. Brown.

A very fun side storyline involving three chicks going off to retrieve three eggs is done in a style that recalls the Scrat plotlines of the ‘Ice Age’ movies. As previously mentioned, the humour can be a bit juvenile, including the use of toilet humour and an eye roll-inducing breakdance battle. But the characters are such good fun with gags being thrown left, right and centre that the animated feature ends up being quite a romp. Adults and kids will both enjoy it immensely because that solid characterisation, humour and sense of fun consistently shine through.