BEFORE: OK, so I've got a plan for July. Actually, several. I've got a linked chain of 13 documentaries that I'd like to get to, and with luck, the ones on each end happen to feature actors in them that happen to appear in other movies on my list - so my goal was to get from July 4 to a movie with one of those actors in it - either end, I can always flip the chain around if needed. The actors are Sharon Stone and Ron Funches, but that doesn't really matter. Applying my patented complicated linking techniques (involving scrap paper, post-its and a lot of circles and arrows) I found that there are several paths I can take, which is a sign that I may have TOO MANY movies on my list, but this can be a good thing if it makes linking easier. Now I just have to pick one of the paths, which could contain the movies I most want to see, and I've got my documentary chain confirmed for summer, which should take me right up to the end of July. That's 12 films to GET to Sharon Stone, 13 docs, and a one or two-film leadout. Add the first four days of July which are already programmed, and that's a whole month.
Where will that leave me on August 1? No idea. But if I can get from there to some back-to-school films, and from those to the start of my October horror chain, then that's a year, maybe even another perfect year. We'll see. Every step helps form a small chain, and if the small chains keep connecting to make a larger chain, then I'm still in business. To make it happen, as I suspected, I need to move "The Laundromat" from May to July. It was between two other films with Will Forte, so the May chain will just close up without it, and those two films are on the same topic (sort of) so it feels like this was meant to be. The large cast of "The Laundromat" made it a much easier target to hit as a lead in for the documentaries, so it made sense to do this.
Maya Rudolph carries over again from "The Willoughbys", and that's it for her for now, but she'll be back in May for one more appearance. I think with that 8th film in May, she'll take the lead for appearances for the year, ahead of De Niro's 7.
THE PLOT: The flightless birds and scheming green pigs take their feud to the next level.
AFTER: Wow, and I thought "The Willoughbys" was tough to get through, this one was a real challenge. Does anybody even still PLAY "Angry Birds" on their phone any more? Haven't we all found like at least 10 better games since then? Who the heck is still launching those birds at pig castles, or whatever the hell you did in that game? How do you even win? I think I played the game once for about two minutes before it got boring and frustrating.
It's the second film in the franchise, and already they've lost sight of the original premise, which was catapulting birds, if I remember correctly. Now in this film they don't even do that, so right off, that seems weird. Wouldn't the few people still playing the game tend to be big fans of birds being launched through the air in order to knock down buildings? So what the hell happened, why abandon the one thing that the first movie and the game are known for?
Instead both Angry Bird Island and Pig Island are threatened by a previously unknown THIRD island, Eagle Island. And it's kind of strange that nobody was ever aware of this island before, I mean, it's not immediately next to the others, but neither is it far enough away for residents of both known islands to be completely clueless about it. There's even an eagle character in both the original "Angry Birds" movie and this sequel, so he obviously came from there, and yet everyone is completely blown away here that there could be characters who are neither pigs nor small birds. WTF? Or am I overthinking this?
Despite being close enough to the other two islands to launch stuff at, Eagle Island somehow has a polar climate, while the other two islands are distinctly tropical. Umm, how is that possible? That's now how weather works. And the lead eagle is tired of eating only frozen food (namely a fish in the middle of a block of ice) and also tired of having ice in her swimming pool, falling down on the ice that's everywhere, so she has her scientists devise a plan to hurl balls of ice at the other islands to destroy everything, so she and the other eagles can move there. First off, the eagles are birds that can fly, unlike the other birds in the film, so as the first of many NITPICK POINTS, why can't they all just fly to another island and start living there? Doesn't have to be Bird Island or Pig Island, just pick another one with a better climate and fly there.
Then the lead eagle, Zeta, wants to put lava inside the ice balls and throw those at the other islands, to destroy them even more. Right. They have lava on the frozen island. So why the hell don't they USE their own lava to melt all the ice, or at least warm up dinner? This gets more confusing and confounding the further you do down the non-logical rabbit hole. Things barely improve when the Birds and Pigs team up and put an elite crack squad together to travel to Eagle Island and destroy the machine that hurls lava-filled ice balls.
Admittedly, it's a nice improvement to see the two warring factions working together toward a common goal, but still a weird lesson for the kiddies, which is that the only time you should make peace with your enemy is when there's a common threat, and you both hate a third party even more than you hate each other. But if I want to get all symbolic for a moment, perhaps the birds and pigs could be seen as warring political parties, say as Democrats (birds?) and Republicans (pigs?) who have been known to put their differences aside when there's a much larger threat to the country. You know, something like the Taliban or a pandemic. Wouldn't that be nice, if the two parties could work together to defeat the pandemic, instead of just toeing the party line and supporting or declaiming whatever crazy notion the President has on any given day?
I was sort of reminded of Trump when Zeta the eagle asks her scientists if they could put lava inside of an ice ball - it was a lot like Trump asking his science advisers if they could inject bleach or somehow shine strong light into a person to defeat the corona virus. Both plans are about equal on the feasability/ridiculousness scale. Disinfectant kills the virus on surfaces, so it's easy to see how a stupid person might ask if that can then work inside somebody's lungs. Sure, as long as you don't mind killing them in the process, what have we got to lose? Notice how quickly he back-pedalled off of that when he realized that the stupid people who might try that are some of the same stupid people who would be likely to vote for him in the fall? Nah, we can't let anything happen to THOSE people.
Perhaps I'm just finding coincidences where there are none. After all, they couldn't possibly have made this film with future pandemic events in mind, as there was no way to possibly predict the crazy news from the last two months.
I'm glad I don't have any kids, because this way I can just hate-watch a stupid animated sequel, yet I fully admit I'm not even close to being in this film's target market. But it would terrify me if I did have a son or daughter, and they watched this with me and I saw that they were enjoying it.
Also starring the voices of Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Josh Gad (last seen in "Marshall"), Leslie Jones (last seen in "Top Five"), Bill Hader (last seen in "You, Me and Dupree"), Rachel Bloom, Awkwafina (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"), Sterling K. Brown (last seen in "Hotel Artemis"), Eugenio Derbez (last seen in "How to Be a Latin Lover"), Tiffany Haddish (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Danny McBride (last seen in "Alien: Covenant"), Peter Dinklage (last seen in "Just a Kiss"), Pete Davidson (last seen in "Set It Up"), Zach Woods (last seen in "Other People"), Dove Cameron, Tony Hale (last heard in "Toy Story 4"), JoJo Siwa, Lil Rel Howery (last seen in "Bird Box"), Nicki Minaj (last seen in "The Other Woman"), Beck Bennett (last seen in "Dean"), Gaten Matarazzo, Brooklynn Prince (last seen in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"), Genesis Tennon, Alma Varsano, Anthony Padilla (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Colleen Ballinger (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), David Dobrik, Mason Ramsey, Alex Hirsch, Faith Margaret Kidman-Urban, Sunday Rose Kidman-Urban, Nolan North (last heard in "Batman: The Killing Joke"), Thurop Van Orman, Ally Garrett, Kelly Prizeman.
RATING: 2 out of 10 post-its
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