Flying off the gigantic success of its 2009 online video game “Angry Birds,” Rovio Entertainment of Finland commissioned a script from animation film and television writer John Vitti (“The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill,” “Ice Age”) for a feature film about the birds that fly via slingshot.
Joined by animators Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly in their directorial debut, “The Angry Birds” is an ornithological and porcine potpourri of every bird and pig pun you’ve ever seen or heard and voiced by many “Saturday Night Live” alumni.
But let me explain the pig part, because this is where humor and conflict collide.
Red (Jason Sudeikis) is a fierce bird clown who lives with many flightless birds on a tropical island. His house is near the harbor and he likes his mostly solitary existence. Angry birds, after all, don’t have many friends.
He entertains newly hatched chicks, but after he bombs a customer in a fit of anger, he is sent to bird court and Judge Peckinpah (Keegan-Michael Key) sentences him to anger management classes.
There, he meets Chuck (Josh Gad), a yellow bird that speeds; Bomb (Danny McBride), a gentle black bird who explodes when he gets mad; and Terence (Sean Penn) a gigantic red bird who exudes ferocity. Their therapist is Matilda (Maya Rudolph), herself a recovering angry bird.\
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