Directed by Fergal Reilly and Clay Katis, the film is based on a successful franchise, first launched by Finnish game company Rovio in 2009 and which has already given rise to a series of cartoon shorts.

    Given that there’s not much of a story in the original games and the shorts are nearly dialogue-free and all about slapstick* anyway, the screenplay by Jon Vitti, based on a story credited to John Cohen, Mikael Hed and David Maisel, hasn’t got much material with which to build up characters from the start.

    Vitti’s script sets out to answer the question many might have asked themselves: Why are these birds so angry? Why don’t they fly? And what’s with the green pigs?

    We never do find out exactly why they’re all flightless* birds, but it turns out that life on Bird Island is fairly happy, peaceful and good-natured. So much so that naturally short-tempered cardinal* Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) is made to feel like a social outcast* among the happy residents and is ordered by the court to attend anger-management classes run by Matilda (Maya Rudolph), who has her own issues.

    Red’s fellow students include Chuck (Josh Gad), a hyperactive* yellow canary, and Bomb (Danny McBride), a usually placid* blackbird who has a long fuse but little control when he explodes. Finally, there’s silent bruiser* Terrence, voiced by Sean Penn.

    One day, a ship covered in gears and tracks and sporting a massive wrecking ball* pulls into the harbor. It is captained by Leonard (Bill Hader), a green pig. Only Red is suspicious* when Leonard and his crew mates, whose numbers grow at an alarming rate, start dispensing free food and catapults* to help them fly, and sure enough it turns out one should always beware of pigs bearing gifts. The visitors steal what is most precious to the birds, and Red ends up leading an attack on their citadel* using the very catapult the pigs left behind.

    If the screenplay is a little too much on the homiletic*, with messages about family and accepting who you are, the quality of visual imagination is very high.(SD-Agencies)