Don't let your hatchlings leave the nest for The Angry Birds Movie

The new animated film The Angry Birds Movie will appeal to fans of the popular video game franchise, but many parents might be in the mood to tar and feather Sony Pictures executives for showing poor judgment in discerning suitable family entertainment.

After losing his temper at a children’s birthday party, Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) earns a stint in anger management rehab. There he meets the island community’s other odd birds—Chuck (Josh Gad), Bomb (Danny McBride), and Terence (Sean Penn)—whose camaraderie Red spurns.

Leonard the bearded pig (Bill Hader) captains two shiploads of green swine in an invasion of Bird Island to steal its residents’ eggs. The birds turn to Red, who predicted the porkers’ imposture, to lead them in a raid on Piggy Island to reclaim the eggs. The film suggests righteous anger has its place—doing so with a surprising but probably unintended pro-life flavor. The eggs aren’t just eggs.

“They stole our children,” Red squawks, annoyed. “I mean, who does that?”

Although the film acknowledges pre-hatched babies are valuable individuals, there’s no other evidence the film’s writers are trying to make an anti-abortion statement. In fact, the writers have very little to say, putting all their eggs in the action basket. The thoroughly dull dialogue prevents the film from getting too far off the ground, crash-landing with a birdbrained parting thought. Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage), Bird Island’s mascot and quasi-deity figure, rationalizes his late and meager participation in the rescue of the eggs.

“I had to make you lose faith in me, so you could have faith in yourselves,” Mighty Eagle explains. (Can I get a “Whatever!”?)

The high-quality animation and handful of chuckles (like a mother bird packing her kids’ lunch before school by regurgitating a goopy mess into their brown bags) aren’t enough to recommend the film. But mindless fare isn’t the worst of this movie’s offenses. Angry Birds pushes the boundaries of its PG-rating with a barrage of material inappropriate for children: sexual innuendo, a lengthy urination scene, celebration of voyeurism, suggestive dancing, and four instances of the phrase starting with “Oh my” but not ending in “gosh.”

Many angry parents will wish they hadn’t let their hatchlings out of the nest to see this one.