It sounds crazy to say this, but great animated comedy requires a lot of physical gags. The reason that most Looney Tunes are so memorable is not because of the dialogue or jokes in each episode, but rather on what Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and The Tazmanian Devil are doing and how they're doing it. So, on the face of things, Angry Birds, which is fronted with vocal work by Jason Sudeikis, Danny McBride, and Josh Gad, should make for a great animated comedy, even if it does happen to be adapted from a game you play on your phone when you don't want to talk with your co-worker at lunch. The latest trailer for the animated film makes it seem that there will be a good amount of just such gags, especially the tracking shot of Chuck going through the various rooms of the pigs' castle, but there is a long-running tendency in movies to put the best bits in the trailer to excuse the 50-60 minutes of filler that you will have to swallow along with the big laughs. Here's hoping that's not the case with this one.
You can watch the new Angry Birds trailer, via EW, below. Directed by Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, the voice cast also includes Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Bill Hader, and Peter Dinklage. Angry Birds opens in 3D on May 20th, 2016.
Here's the official synopsis for Angry Birds:
The movie takes us to an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds – or almost entirely. In this paradise, Red (Jason Sudeikis – We’re the Millers, Horrible Bosses), a bird with a temper problem, speedy Chuck (Josh Gad in his first animated role since Frozen), and the volatile Bomb (Danny McBride – This is the End, Eastbound and Down) have always been outsiders. But when the island is visited by mysterious green piggies, it’s up to these unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.
