Review of Free Birds (2013) by Keenan S — 22 Mar 2014

When I saw this film for sale at a store, I had to ask myself, "Do I really hate myself enough to watch this?" Well, as you can see, that answer was yes. What can I say? I have an insatiable addiction for seeking out shitty films.

Hearing the premise of Free Birds alone is enough to make a person groan. Two turkeys travel back in time to the first Thanksgiving to take turkeys off the menu for good. One of the turkeys is a pardoned turkey that lived at the vacation home of the President, while the other is a crazy turkey convinced he was given an assignment by the Great Turkey to save all turkeys. That's basically the plot in a nutshell. Why do I say that? Because outside of that very condensed summary, Free Birds is a confusing and convoluted clusterfuck of a film, on top of being a very generic and bland film.

Within the first ten minutes, most of the signs of a steady plot were thrown out the window and the film devolved into a confusing mess of tired gags that barrage the viewer mercilessly as if the film is suffering from extreme A.D.D. The jokes themselves have no timing, have no real meaning, no effort behind them, and the film also feels the need to bitch slap viewers by doing some jokes twice, if not more.

On top of being a wretched and unfunny comedy, the film also makes the disastrous error of trying to insert heavy drama into the mix later on, which makes the film feel even more uneven and unfocused. Needless to say, the drama aspects sure as hell don't work either.

Overall the story is unfocused, the characters are annoying and uninteresting, there are more bizarre homoerotic moments than a Joel Schumacher film, there's random product placement, the humor is awful and unfunny, the action is dull, the drama is flat and tiresome, and the whole film feels cynical in its lazy creative output. It's sole purpose is to make parents buy this for their kids in the hopes of a cute film, but what they get instead is a tiresome and generic film that will basically mock you because it took your money and there's not a damn thing you can do about that fact. Avoid Free Birds and find yourself a much better animated film to watch - there are plenty of better options than this.