Free Birds
Free Birds
PG | 01 November 2013 (USA)
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Two turkeys from opposite sides of the tracks must put aside their differences and team up to travel back in time to change the course of history—and get turkey off the holiday menu for good.

Reviews
Solemplex

To me, this movie is perfection.

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Bereamic

Awesome Movie

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SanEat

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

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Jenna Walter

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

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Film Fan Perspective

It's important to preface this review with two things. First, I gave my child the choice of which movie he wanted to see between this and "Ender's Game". Without skipping a beat, he said "FREE BIRDS!". Also, it bears mentioning that I'm not a fan of vocal leads Owen Wilson OR Woody Harrelson, and I actively try to avoid seeing movies they're in. Sometimes it's unavoidable, like seeing "Wag the Dog" and having Woody surprise me with his presence. Keeping these things in mind, I didn't think there would be much to whet my appetite; truth be told, there isn't a great deal here to enjoy for kids or adults, but at least I can say that I didn't abhor the experience, and it's family friendly. If that does anything for you.The idea is that turkeys are people, too. Yep. One turkey (Owen Wilson), who is 'different than all the others' (hence his purple visage), manages to become the one turkey the president pardons. The first daughter keeps him as a pet, and in the process, he orders pizza, watches telenovelas, and all while the humans are cool with the apparent personification of the turkey. The powerful turkey does not raise any red flags with humans of the present day, an interesting fact when contrasted with the humans from the past in the SAME MOVIE.Did I say humans of the past? I did! That's right, our hero turkey meets another powerful turkey (Harrelson), who has one goal in mind- travel back in time to get turkeys off the thanksgiving menu. This other powerful turkey has been able to (without opposable thumbs): infiltrate top-secret government plans on time-travel research, get past the secret service, defy physics and get into the time-travel 'egg', etc, and SUCCEEDS. Adding to the silliness is the fact that the film shows us that humans can't understand the gobbles of turkeys (obviously), but the time capsule (with a navigation system voiced by George Takei) understands the turkeys perfectly (of course). I'm willing to suspend disbelief for most animated films, but this film takes complicated subjects and plays with them so lazily I couldn't help but get perturbed.Once our 'hero turkeys' reach the past and the Plymouth settlement, the film makes the most sense, and has the most fun. The interaction among the film's main characters, while standard fare, makes the most sense, and provides a couple of laughs. Again, it's nothing new, though. The most damning representation of the value of this film was in the reaction of my child, though, who seemed disinterested, and in fact, ready to nap about an hour into the film during the colonial scenes.The film's co-writer and producer, Scott Mosier, is a frequent collaborator of Kevin Smith. My problem with all of Smith's movies has been the laziness of the script to not expound on a good original idea. While it's not ultimately his responsibility, I sense the same thing with this film from Mosier and crew. It's not terrible, but the original, silly idea of altering the future of turkeys is unfortunately extrapolated over 90 minutes of typical character development, confounding science, and nonsensical decision-making by the humans in the film, who supposedly have much larger brains/brain capacity. I certainly didn't feel compelled to think, laugh, or enjoy myself for most of the film.

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croxton3

My kids and I loved this movie, so I was surprised to see the low rating on IMDb. The negative comments seem to center on three things:(1) "Cultural insensitivity," chiefly for portraying 17th century turkeys like Indians. I don't get this one. They are put in opposition to pilgrims, who are trying to eat them, and the Indian association seems natural. (2) A "vegetarian" message. I am relatively sensitive to such message (e.g., I thought it was rather heavy-handed in "Jurassic Park"), so I can say that there simply isn't one here. It's about turkeys trying not to get eaten, not that people should never eat meat. (3) "disregard for time-travel paradoxes" (quoting from Wikipedia here). It's a movie about talking turkeys, and this guy is bothered by inconsistencies in time travel? If this bothers you, it's time to take off the bow tie and unfasten the suspenders, you need to loosen up.Okay, the plot is not great, and there really isn't a message (at least not much of one). The joy of this movie and others of its ilk is in the presentation. There are a lot of funny lines, and the animation is amazing. I love seeing how cartoonists can elicit the most focused emotions simply by depicting a turkey's face.If you are looking for a deep movie, this one is probably not for you. If you are looking for a great way to spend 90 minutes, you will enjoy this one.

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classicsoncall

So I just watched two time travel movies back to back, the other one was "Timecop". Hard to say which one made less sense but this one was somewhat entertaining. At least my five year old granddaughter thought so by paying attention throughout the whole story. Things got a bit carried away near the end when you had four Reggies show up all at once - in "Timecop" they would have all exploded or some such thing, on the basis that the same entity couldn't occupy more than one physical location at any given point in time. On the flip side, that might have been a good reason to have Thanksgiving dinner early. No need to get too carried away here. You've got a fun story that's got plenty of humor, and to the discredit of all the PETA folks, it probably won't turn your kid into a vegetarian.

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kosmasp

Not nearly as good as the other time traveling animal (Mr. Peabody), but has some charm of its own. Although that might depend on your take of Owen Wilson (since he's the voice of the main character here). You might want to rate higher or lower I guess. The time travel thing does not work entirely, but what makes it worthwhile is the fact that it has a few jokes here and there (definitely not the "twist" towards the end though that's for sure).This animation works more the kids and less for the adults, though there are some stabs at American/native history here. It still is kept simple and the whole thing is predictable. There are worse things though and your kids/young ones won't mind watching this at all.

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