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Angry Birds

8/10

Stars: Voices: Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Peter Dinklage, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Keegan-Michael Key, Sean Penn, Titus Burgess, Kate McKinnon, Ike Barinholtz, Hannibal Buress, Billy Eichner, Danielle Brooks, Tony Hale, Blake Shelton

Director: Fergal Reilly, Clay Kaytis

Yet another videogame generates a movie.

Here the setting is a remote island populated by cheerful flightless birds whose idyllic life is disrupted by an invasion of pigs. So in essence, the driving force of the amusingly loony proceedings boils down to “Who is best? Two feet or four?” providing of course that trotters and claws count as feet.

What does count, however, is Our Eponymous Hero, Angry Bird Red, who is enjoyably introduced with a slapstick sequence seething with pratfalls, as he attempts to deliver a large egg to a party and ends up slapping a face with a cream cake in best vaudeville style.

The simple straightforward story (screenplay by Jon Vitti) is exactly what directors Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis need to deliver a briskly paced deluge of smartly animated gags, verbal and physical, which should please the target audience of youngsters.

Accompanying adults might well unexpectedly find themselves laughing, too.

Alan Frank

USA/Finland 2016. UK Distributor: Sony. Technicolor.
93 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: U.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 16 Oct 2016

DVD review