Sony Pictures Animation and Rovio Animation’s The Angry Birds Movie 2 (dubbed from the Hollywood film of the same name) is the second in the The Angry Birds Movie series. It is an animation film.
Birds inhabiting the Birds Island are at loggerheads with pigs staying in the Pigs Island. But the pigs offer the birds an olive branch. Bird Red (voice of Kapil Shrama) is initially reluctant to bury the hatchet but when other birds prevail upon him, he accepts the offer of the pigs for friendship. Now, the birds and the pigs have to fight their common enemy, the eagles residing in the Eagles Island. Zeta (voice of Archna Pooran Singh) is quite a tyrant of an eagle and her word is law in the Eagles Island. Her designs are also evil — she wants to destroy the entire population of birds and pigs so that she can capture their islands and live happily ever after. How the birds and the pigs defeat Zeta at her own game is the crux of the story.
The story is based on the Angry Birds video game and is interesting mainly for kids. However, the screenplay, written by Peter Ackerman, Eyal Podell and Jonathon E. Stewart, is not very clear as technical details have not been explained properly. The modus operandi adopted by the birds and pigs, led by Red, should have been explained in a simple manner so as to make complete sense to the audience. Of course, the kids, in any case, would not have understood the technicalities of the plan of the birds and pigs on the one hand and of the eagles on the other, but had the entire plan been explained in a simplistic style, the elders accompanying the children audience to the cinemas would have felt more involved and engaged in the drama. The first half is quite boring as even the comic portions don’t really create much of an impact. However, the screenplay after interval is more fast-paced and fairly exciting. Dialogues, written by Taranveer Singh, are good at places. Falling back on punch-packed dialogues from Hindi films and using them in dubbed Hindi versions of Hollywood films is becoming the norm these days but in this film, many of those dialogues fail to create comedy. Of course, some of the dialogues do evoke laughter.
The voice acting of Kapil Sharma is okay. He doesn’t add much to Red’s character, probably because of two reasons: one, he doesn’t have a rich voice, and secondly, his pronunciations are not immaculate. Archna Pooran Singh does justice to the character of Zeta, more so in the film’s second half. Kiku Sharda’s voice acting for pig Leonard is excellent. He deserves distinction marks for his performance. Meghna Erande’s dubbing for Silver is lovely. Sahil Vaid’s voice acting for Chuck is effective. Mohan Kapoor’s distinctive voice for eagle Ethan stands out. Anushree Pankey (for Zoe), Arman Pandey (for Vi-Vi) and Dhruv Bhave (for Sam-Sam) are terrific. Their track in the story is rather cute. Dubbing of the others is quite alright.
Thurop Van Orman’s direction is ordinary. Music (Heitor Pereira) and background music are okay. Cinematography (by Simon Dunsdon) is nice. Pete Oswald’s production designing is appropriate. Kent Beyda and Ally Garrett’s editing could’ve been tighter.
On the whole, The Angry Birds Movie 2 is an ordinary fare which holds some appeal for the kids mainly. Its original English version, also released simultaneously, will fare better than the dubbed version.
Released on 23-8-’19 at Maratha Mandir (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay by SPE Films India Pvt. Ltd. Publicity: so-so. Opening: dull. …….Also released all over. Opening was weak everywhere.
