I’ve been curious about this movie for awhile. We’ve read a few books at the library that are based on this movie, but they didn’t tell me much. Have you ever read those “based on the movie” books. They are SO dumb. Someone who has clearly never seen the movie was tasked with coming up with captions that would appropriately match the pictures and the result is a mixed bag of weird, inaccurate and rhetorical statements.
Accurate.
I didn’t take my daughter to see it in theaters because I was afraid it might be scary. At least on family movie night if I sense that the movie is about to bring on some PG 13 level horror I can distract the kids by sending them to the kitchen for movie snacks while hastily fast forwarding. Fortunately, my kids are not yet old enough to notice a giant narrative leap taking place in the five seconds they were gone. One example that occurred in this movie was that creepy cyborg bad guy arrived and was clearly looking to f**k s**t up so I sent my three year old off to get the bowl of popcorn on the counter. When she returned she looked confused and said “why are they in Mexico now?” to which I replied “they took the Red Eye, honey” and she merely shrugged and tucked in to her snack, oblivious to my web of lies and deceit.
I was right to be wary, for this movie is quite scary in parts. The bad guy has a cybernetic eye and a giant claw hand and is voiced by Ben Mendelsohn whose creepy lisping accent continues to unnerve me.
By the end of the movie when half of his face is a mess of bloody sinew I found myself wondering why we didn’t just watch The Dark Knight as Two Face is no less frightening than this guy
And has twice the charisma
Apart from being WAY too scary for any sensitive kids I did like this movie. Basically a government agent gets turned into a pigeon by a science wiz kid and they go on a zany adventure together trying to defeat the bad guy who stole some technological Maguffin while also trying to get the agent back to human form. It’s a cute idea and it is well executed. I love pigeons. One of the standout memories I have from my high school trip to New York City was seeing a pigeon for the first time and getting very excited about it. Pigeons are funny looking creatures and that is played off for laughs throughout the film. Unfortunately, its really the only laugh that this movie has going for it.
I probably would have been annoyed if I’d gone to the theater and paid good money to watch this. My daughter has already forgotten about it and we only watched it two days ago. My husband shrugged when it was over and said it was “fine but it was no Tangled”. As something new to watch while stuck at home, I’d cautiously recommend it, if only because pigeons haven’t gotten this much positive screen time since Home Alone 2 and I’m here for it.
I can’t tell you how crushed I was as a kid to learn that this wasn’t a real job
Movie Mommy 