The Cynic Reviews Birdemic

  It seems that I haven't been living up to my title lately. I haven't been nearly curmudgeonly enough to deserve the name I've given myself. After all, if I'm gonna call this thing "The Cynic Reviews", the least I can do is deserve the name. The problem here is that I've so far only reviewed movies that I liked, and it's hard to turn "this was pretty good" into something bitter and acerbic. So it seems that it's time I review a real turd. I owe it to all of you who take the time to read this crap.

Boy does Birdemic deliver. I mean, I've seen some crap in my time, but damn!

Okay, so maybe I've seen worse; things like Troll 2 or Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter that made me genuinely cringe and roll up into a fetal position, questioning how there could be a god in a world where these movies are allowed to exist.Birdemic: Shock and Terror is not that kind of bad. Actually, as crazy as it may sound to many of you, I really enjoyed watching this movie. 

Before you all drag me off to the asylum, let me explain:

If you're any kind of movie geek, there's a very good chance that you've at least heard of the concept of a movie that is "so bad it's good". For those who aren't movie geeks, I've drawn up a terrible diagram for you:

Basically, have you ever laughed at something serious a friend of yours said because it was just so phenominally stupid? As it turns out, movies sometimes work that way as well. Birdemic is one such movie: if you've ever wanted to see just how many ways a movie can suck, watch this movie.

The lines sound like they were written by a third grader (with such classics as "There are dead people by that car. Let's go see if there are any survivers." and "Yeah, well my car gets a hundred miles an hour!"), the "actors" sound like they came off some bad middle school production of Everybody Poops, the production values are so poor, they makeSharktopus look like Avatar, and the music sounds like it was comprised entirely of sample loops from Garage Band. I've never seen Murphy's Law apply so beautifully to a movie. And as for the plot...

DAMN.

It seriously feels like two completely different movies: one a crappy romance between two people who never actually get to know each other, and base their entire relationship on a mutual desire to screw each other (so in other words, exactly like all movie romances), and the other being a half assed ripoff of The Birds, except with eagles instead of seagulls, and without the involvement Alfred Hitchcock which, let's face it, was the reason The Birds  was good.

But the plot isn't important (not even to the cast and crew, apparently). The best part about Birdemic is that we were meant to take all this crap seriously. The stupid love story, the stupid horror movie part, even the stupid, tacked on message about global warming. I mean look, I'm a good radical lefty; I understand the importance of global warming. I understand that human beings need to stop fucking up the planet for teh lulz. But whatever global warming is doing, it probably has nothing to do with a mass uprising of birds who start invading cities and killing people. Global warming, important a subject as it may be, global warming never does well with a cinematic treatment. It is a subject that deserves a respectful, intelligent debate. "Respectful", "intelligent", and "debate" are three words that b movies and Hollywood collectively don't understand.

But enough preaching. Bottom line: Birdemic: Shock and Horror is awful, but awful in all the right ways. As much as it sucks, I think everybody needs to see it, if only so you all believe me when I say that something like this exists. Get some good friends together, overload on junk food, and prepare to laugh your asses off. That may not be what the filmmakers had in mind when they made this cinematic dump, but it's nice to think that it turned out to be good for something. That's more than I can say for Troll 2. Grade: a hilariously well deserved F