the first thing that came to my mind when i saw that this film was going to be made was "how are they going to make a movie out of that?". it turns out the answer is the same way that they made films out of other popular game properties that didn't have much of a story to begin with. this film plays like a money grab that only exists to capitalize off of a property with some cultural cache rather than a film that was made to entertain. the plot and the characters in this film were clearly not the priority. angry birds chronicles the adventures of red, one of the titular angry birds, as he navigates living in a world where anger barely exists. when that existence is threatened by the arrival of pigs who steal their eggs to eat, the other birds turn to him to lead them on a quest to get those eggs back. unfortunately, that is all that there is to the plot and this even seems stretched thin over the short run time of this film. also, the story seems a tad too dark for the tone of the film. the conflict of the film comes from pigs stealing unborn children and preparing to eat them. that story has an inherent darkness that seems at odds with the light, child friendly tone of this film. but, the bigger problem with this film is the characters themselves, if you can even call them characters. i haven't seen a film recently with such a lack of depth to any of the characters. each of the characters literally becomes what their ability in the game is and nothing else. there is no complexity. even the typical kids film imbues their main characters with a little more depth that transcends a single quality. unfortunately, this film isn't able to do that and tries to hard to make references to the game, rather than developing interesting characters that could carry this movie. it undermines the message and the effectiveness of the rest of the film. all in all, there are better children's films out there. this one does not even approach average. even though this film isn't made for my demographic, there are some elements that i don't think make it effective for the target demographic either. kids aren't stupid but this film seems to think they are.