Angry Birds 2 review: manic, feather-brained fun – but will anyone give a flying finch?

Dir: Thurop Van Orman, starring: Jason Sudeikis, Danny McBride, Josh Gad, Bill Hader, Rachel Bloom, Leslie Jones, Peter Dinklage (voices), U cert,  96 minutes 

Back when summers were tolerable and politics boring, Angry Birds was the hottest thing in avian-based personal entertainment. But it’s now 10 years since the video game from Finnish start-up Rovio dropped from the clear blue sky and onto our smart-phones. The world has moved on, making this sequel to the first Angry Birds movie, a surprise ￡280 million hit in 2016, feel like a curio catapulted in from a simpler time.

The original Angry Birds was an old-fashioned and cheerily derivative mash-up of Shrek and Toy Story. Misunderstood Red – crotchety and with those off-putting Gallagher Brother eye-brows – became an accidental hero when grunting green pigs tried to conquer Bird Island and he was the only one to notice. It was slight but funny and, as Red, Jason Sudeikis made for an appealing anti-hero  – the archetypal sourpuss with a heart of gold.

The sequel, overseen by Cartoon Network director Thurop Van Orman, alas lacks a pressing reason to exist. It is pleasantly manic while its vividly bright colours, swirling like a party pack of Smarties upended over your head, will appeal to your own little birds. Yet it misses the curmudgeonly charms of its predecessor, and suffers from the diminishing allure of a video game brand too old to feel fresh, too recent to be wistful for.

Red and sidekicks Bomb (Danny McBride) and Chuck (Josh Gad – aka Olaf from Frozen) are once again waging catapult-based war on their porcine foes. But then a third island drifts into view spewing destructive volleys of ice. It’s time for Red and pig leader Leonard (Bill Hader) to set aside their differences and tackle their common enemy.

That enemy turns out to be romantically-embittered eagle Zeta (Ghostbusters/Saturday Night Live star Leslie Jones). In the Angry Birds version of the Nineties, she was jilted by cowardly Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage). Now she’s back and seemingly set on revenge.

Sudeikis’s Red has romantic issues of his own when he is forced to partner up with Chuck’s brainy sister Silver (Rachel Bloom). We get a meet-cute with feathers as they initially cannot abide one another yet quickly strike up a spark.

Angry Birds 2 features easily-missed voice cameos from Nicki Minaj, Tiffany Haddish and tween icon JoJo Siwa. Van Orman bungs in some spiky gags too, including a TV show called “Twin Beaks” and a bestseller titled “Crazy Rich Avians”.

Kids are catered for with super-sized servings of slapstick. But the grumpy chemistry of the original is conspicuously absent as Red undergoes an unconvincing transformation from frowning introvert to romantic lead. There is also the awkward question of whether, in this era of Fortnite and Detective Pikachu, anyone under the age of nine gives a flying finch for Rovio’s shiny, flappy franchise.