My Review of Freebirds · 3:10pm Dec 2nd, 2024
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, folks! This is Mr. J back with another movie review for today. This morning, I will be reviewing a 2013 animated family/comedy film called “Freebirds”. Although we are now past the Thanksgiving holiday, I still think that it is fitting to get this out of the way since it is a holiday movie after all. Now with that being said, have you ever thought about what turkeys are like?
Have you ever considered the feelings, lives, and friends they all had before they were all butchered and cooked for dinner? No? Sort of? Never? Well, the director apparently thought so and felt like it was a movie he wanted to make. Here’s how ridiculous it gets later on:
This movie is about a turkey who is an outcast to his fellow turkeys and is randomly pardoned out of all the turkeys by the President from being cooked for Thanksgiving. Then Reggie is snatched by a rooster named Jake who informs him of a mission given to him by the Great Turkey: going back in time to the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621 so they can save all the turkeys within three days before the festival, changing history forever.
Now, I do admit there were some moments in this film that were genuinely interesting. However, this clunky execution of this weirdly convoluted premise prevents this from being a complete masterpiece. Seriously, I don’t know what went through the director’s head when he came up with these ideas.
Let’s start with the negatives: I’m not a fan of some of the art style choices. The way the human faces are drawn look so bad & odd; they look like baby faces that were genetically engineered by Boss Baby himself. At least the turkeys look well-animated…
Most of these characters are bland, one-dimensional stereotypes. None of them provided anything original or meaningful to the story, and the way these writers developed them was so predictable. The same can be said for pretty much half of the plot.
Oh, look, there’s a pretty girl in the midst of strangers! “Love at first sight” cliche. Hey, look, our main characters are daring to do something heroic against the wishes of the flock! “Trying to prove themselves worthy” cliche. Aww, look at that, one of the main characters accidentally led the antagonists to their home & almost everyone gets captured!
“You led them straight to us!” cliche. You see what I mean? Don’t get me wrong; cliches aren’t bad in and of themselves, but if they’re utilized in the most painfully predictable and least interesting way possible, then it becomes an annoying waste of time.
It’s just a generic family film that has nearly all the ingredients for a family film but without any flavor or substance or unique texture to stand out in any way. I can see what they were going for, but I feel like its message was undermined by its own shortcomings—one of which being the utterly stupid premise.
Owen Wilson’s voice acting honestly wasn’t that great. He sounded so half-hearted with nearly every line delivery he made, and his voice performance gave me the impression he didn’t give a shit about this movie. At least in the Cars trilogy, he sounded like he cared. Here, he sounds so bored and wants to be elsewhere.
The villain was just…not really a villain in this movie. Standish was just doing his job to provide a satisfying feast for the people who were eagerly graving for food. Sure, he is an antagonist to the turkeys, but that’s just from their perspective…as it is in real life. To me, he didn’t deserve to be treated as a bad guy, so his defeat at the end made no sense.
Lastly, the ending was just bafflingly dumb. Instead of having turkey for Thanksgiving, they are gifted with pizza?? Huh? Okay, so cooking turkeys is bad, but eating this junk food full of saturated fat is okay?
I’m not saying pizza is bad (I myself have pizza once in a while), but it just feels a little strange to change history for the sole purpose of trading one type of meat for some delicious junk food which is normally eaten in a regular basis.
I don’t understand why pizza is so highly regarded & worshipped as the greatest food ever in a lot of cartoons & movies. Pizza isn’t that special; in my opinion, French fries are much more delicious with ketchup on top but I digress.
It may sound like I’m taking this movie way too seriously, but I just don’t see the appeal to this. At all. I mean, what was the point Jimmy Hayward was trying to make here? Was he never a fan of having turkeys for Thanksgiving or for any other holiday? I don’t understand the thought process behind this chaotic mess.
As for the time travel shenanigans, it’s just…so much they put into this movie. How & when did Reggie meet Jake when he was a kid? How & when did Reggie got back in time to meet his past self only to find his other past self and then his other OTHER past self and his other other OTHER past self? What is even happening in this movie?! What is knowledge anymore?! What does time even mean anymore?!
Alright, alright, I think I’ve complained enough about this. Let’s talk about the positives…which are very few. Woody Harrelson performed well as Jake, Amy Poehler was decent as Jenny, George Takei was hilarious as S.T.E.V.E., and Keith David delivered his powerful vocal performance as Broadbeak.
I thought Jake’s backstory was heartbreaking because he felt like he disappointed his whole family when he failed to save those eggs from being snatched away by those humans. That must’ve been traumatizing for him, and it makes so much sense he would naturally be prepared for any mission as he got older.
He doesn’t want to lose anyone he considers to be family, and that’s a great way to write a character. In fact, he’s of the few characters who were remotely decent aside from Broadbeak and Ranger.
Speaking of which, Jake & Ranger’s rivalry was so entertaining to watch. They tried to one-up each other plenty of times until they eventually had a respect for each other and stood together with the rest of their flock. Sadly, it’s the only comedic factor I found to be enjoyable…although those scenes with the chipmunks did get a chuckle out of me.
Overall, this movie isn’t that great whatsoever. It has its moments, but the plot is dumb, the premise is ridiculous, most of the characters are paper-thin, the comedy is a hit-n-miss, and the character development is predictable. I’ll give this a 4/10, and I’m just being generous.
Peace!
I remember watching this movie a bit ago on rewatch, and it honestly felt like extremely strange and confusing to me, time travel plots often can be very confusing and make things worse then intended, this movie felt like it just tried too much with the time travel stuff, yet it also barely felt properly explained at all, it felt like a fever dream to me as a kid that still confuses the heck out of me.
Also the pizza obsession thing is weird too, I have to agree with that( Especially with what brand of pizza it is), it felt like an excuse more then anything to wrap up this movie since it didn't have much runtime. This movie is fine to me, both as a kid and to this day. I can see people liking it, and I'm glad they do believe me, but for me personally, it's just fine, I usually just watch a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving instead during this holiday.
I remember seeing this movie a long time ago.
Even though it’s been years since I watched “Free Birds”, and despite having an interest in analyzing it someday, I agree with your review on the film. It was neither memorable or compelling, and I can’t recall it having any qualities to help the whole thing stick.
Hot take: I feel like pizza being served as a substitute for turkey dinners on Thanksgiving is a good idea!