Only children will gobble up animated movie about time-traveling turkeys.
At least one or two computer animated films come out a month these days. Not all of them can be winners.
“Free Birds” begins by introducing Reggie (Owen Wilson) as the one wise turkey on a farm full of ignorant birds who blindly follow the farmers even to the chopping block.
The President of the United States (Jimmy Hayward), who has a voice that mimics Bill Clinton, comes to the farm to perform the annual pardoning of the turkey for Thanksgiving. His hyperactive young daughter insists that Reggie be picked, even though he is scrawny and not the most photogenic of the gang.
The lucky turkey is taken to Camp David and treated like a guest; he lounges around watching television and ordering pizza. How a turkey can operate a remote control, comprehend what’s being said on the television, dial a phone and order pizza is never explained.
A majestic but feather-brained turkey named Jake (Woody Harrelson) crashes in on a Reggie’s relaxation and tells him that he is from the Turkeys Liberation Front. He insists that someone called The Great Turkey told him that they must travel back in time to the first Thanksgiving to alter the history of humans eating turkey on holidays.
The U.S. government has, in fact, figured out time travel, and it just so happens they are attempting their first mission when the turkey team infiltrates the experiment. They end up swapping places with the human time-traveler tester, a man in an outfit that makes him look like a mix between an Olympic speed skater and Woody Allen as a sperm in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.”
The egg-shaped time machine pod, named S.T.E.V.E. (voiced by George Takei), transports them to a few days before the first Thanksgiving. Again, no explanation is given as to why the pod can understand turkey gobbling or how the turkeys can understand the pod’s human voice.
Before the turkeys travel back in time, it is established that humans cannot understand the turkeys. Reggie tries to explain to men in hazmat suits why they are down in the secret underground layer where the time machine is located, but the men only hear gobbling.
When one is contemplating the consistency and logic of human/turkey communication, the film is not working.
In any case, they travel back to a time when turkeys were intelligent, and the pilgrims were starving. The turkeys outsmart the hunters by leading them away from their hideaway and setting off their traps. The community is led by Chief Broadbeak (Keith David), and Reggie falls in love with the president’s daughter, Jenny (Amy Poehler).
“Free Birds” is a lame, repetitive and overlong bore. Too often, the film sacrifices consistent characterization for unfunny gags. In one scene, Jake and a no-nonsense turkey try to communicate through hand signals, which leads them them to show off their dance moves and eventually dance together. A comedy is weak when it has to make jokes that contradict the way the characters act.
It almost seems pointless to try and chart the timeline of the time travel, but that falls apart without much thought. When the identity of The Great Turkey is revealed, it does not make sense that he or she knew to tell Jake to go back in time. Also, everyone knows that if someone goes back in time, they risk altering the future.
Even in the context of a silly children’s film, the plot is too illogical.
The computer animation is sub-par, somewhere between a quickly churned-out kids’ television series and a Dreamworks film. Jimmy Hayward (“Horton Hears a Who”) has co-written and directed a comedy that is nothing more than a silly kids’ film, but it is offensively stupid and lazy. It throws in references to “Apocalypse Now,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Braveheart,” but it is only for the most undemanding youngsters.
At a time when Pixar, Hayao Miyazaki, and Aardman Animations are making films, audiences can avoid “Free Birds” and let it wobble out of cinemas quickly.