Review of Free Birds (2013) by Phil P — 10 Dec 2013

"We're getting turkeys off the menu!".

Train-wreck is what I was expecting from this. An absolute travesty of a film based on the trailers and the rather lack-luster animation but it wasn't 'that' bad. Yes it was poor, bad even but it didn't go completely overboard. Making it probably the biggest shock iv'e had this year - not much of a statement or something it should be proud of, after all it was still lacking.

'Free Birds' tells the story of 'Reggie' (Owen Wilson) a turkey that gets saved on thanksgiving (something I have zero connection too being English), pardoned from being eaten. But he gets kidnapped by a turkey by the name of of 'Jake' (Woody Harrelson) so they can travel back in time and permanently take turkey's off the menu at thanksgiving. The plot is stupid and poorly constructed, there's pacing issues. But if you take out the time travel, ignore it and just focus on them in the past then it's not too bad. It would have been so much better had the turkeys been just in the past from the get go and get rid of the stupid time-travel stuff. Every-time the story gets slight groove and follows what may be a standard formula but one that is ultimately working, it falls flat when time-travelling rears its head. It totally ruins any form of momentum the film was building up. Obviously that's not the only issue there are others but it would have solved a big problem and would have removed the ridiculous joke of an ending.

It was evident when 'Reggie' first meets 'Jenny' (Amy Poehelr)that a romantic interest was going to develop. It's not a bad thing as such, sure it's by the numbers but it's in the end a relief. As something much worse could have happened. That's what this film is all about, damage limitation, trailers can't tell everything but it was clear, from promotion, the studio that this wasn't grade A stuff and creating something passable is an achievement. Which it almost does. Voice acting is fine but this is very rarely a problem with animation, and when you see the cast there's a relief felt. The animation on the other hand isn't 'all' rosie, it's not bad it just has something missing - it feels outdated, sparse and not as well lit. But again it's still good enough. The same can be said for the jokes, which I was dreading the most and while there are some real stinkers. There are still a good number of laughs o be had which is somewhat surprising. Nothing hilarious but a chuckle and a laugh is better than nothing.

'Free Birds' isn't quite the turkey I was expecting. I can't class it as 'good' or even 'ok' but it's a damn sight better than I expected. It could have been bad, really bad. But the half decent plot that is unfortunately ruined by the inclusion of time-travel. There's the odd line to chuckle at and the characters aren't irritating. Pleasantly bad surprise much better than I anticipated - but obviously I still can't recommend it, although very young kids might get a kick out of it.